In one of the remotest of the Fejee Islands some Wesleyan missionaries, in the year 1851, landed a pair of horses. We read general excitement prevailed at the towns near, and a great muster gathered on the beach at the day of landing. It was long before the native mind got reconciled to the phenomenon. The people, we are told, were terrified if approached by a horse. They would jump into the river, run up cocoa-nut and other trees, and climb houses for safety while the animal passed their place. In England this stage of terror has long been passed, and horses themselves are gradually giving place to steam.
Nevertheless, for short traffic—for transit to places where the snort of the steam engine will never be heard—for crooked ways inimical to machinery—for the convenience of those who like to be taken up and set down at their own doors—for the comfort of the nervous, whose firm belief is, that for the regular railway traveller a fatal smash is only a question of time, the London omnibus is a permanent institution. It is difficult to perceive how people managed before it had an existence—when the fare from Highbury to the Bank was a shilling, and when the traveller for the journey from Highgate to London, along the dreary wastes of Holloway, paid no less than half-a-crown, and when even for that exorbitant sum, as it would now be deemed, you had no chance of a trip unless you had booked your place. In those times happy—yea, thrice happy—were the fathers of families living beyond the sound of Bow bells. In these, how can a man help going to the bad, rise he ever so early, or sit he up ever so late, eat he ever so of the bread of carefulness, if mamma and daughters can ride from the furthest suburbs—from remote Peckham or airy Paddington—for the ridiculously small sum of sixpence, or even less, in a vehicle as luxuriously fitted up as a private carriage, to the shops so tempting to the female mind of the fashionable and dissipated West? Happily the evil is tending to cure itself. The ladies have acquired a mode of dressing which simply renders, in the majority of cases, the use of an omnibus an impossibility.
The date of the London omnibus is not ancient. Mr. Shillibeer, in his evidence before the Board of Health, stated that on July 7th, 1829, he started the first pair of omnibuses in the metropolis, from the Bank to the Yorkshire Stingo, New-road, copied from Paris, where omnibuses had been established in 1819, by M. Lafitte, the banker. Each omnibus was drawn by three horses abreast, had no outside passengers, and carried twenty-two inside. Now the same distance is traversed by omnibuses carrying twenty-four passengers—twelve inside and twelve out—and drawn by two horses, for sixpence. At one time the passengers were provided with periodicals—a custom that would be quite superfluous when for a penny the traveller can get all the day’s news. Shillibeer’s first conductors were two sons of British naval officers, who were succeeded by young men in velvet liveries. Shillibeer met with the usual fate of those who labour for the public, and was ruined; but the system he introduced has expanded with the growth of London, and has reached a gigantic extent. One company alone—the General Omnibus Company—a company which has effected a thorough reform in the omnibus service, and deserves the thanks of the public, had, in the first half year of the year 1858, 602 omnibuses running, travelling in the half-year 5,815,036 miles, and carrying 16,800,000 passengers, and pays Government a duty of £4,000 a month. As their yard in Highbury is the largest of the kind, let me conduct the reader thither.
On the main Islington road, not far from Highbury-corner, just opposite Union Chapel, there is a stable-yard, at the entrance of which there are generally two or three ’buses changing horses; a board over it denotes that it is the stabling of the London General Omnibus Company. If we go up that yard we shall find that we are in a vast square, occupying nearly twenty acres of ground, and running as far back as the Liverpool-road. To the right of us are enormous stables, each stable containing forty horses, all comfortably bedded down in straw, resting after their labours, and recruiting their strength for fresh ones. The horses do not work too hard, not more than three hours out of the twenty-four, and consume daily 18 lbs. of corn and 10 lbs. of chaff. To each omnibus—with the exception of the few drawn by three horses, which have a dozen—there are ten horses attached—which are never changed—which are all numbered, and the fullest particulars of which are entered in a book kept by the active and intelligent foreman of the yard. There is a horse-keeper to each set, who knows the times of his omnibus, and acts accordingly. In the middle of the yard is an immense shed, under which the omnibuses are drawn at night and washed and cleaned for the next day. This washing is done very easily. An enormous tank, holding 27,000 gallons of water, supplies several tubs, against which each omnibus is placed. There is a watchman, who comes on at nine at night and receives the omnibuses as they come in, and ranges them in the order in which, on the following morning, they will commence their respective exits. At half-past seven the first omnibus leaves the yard; the next follows eight minutes afterwards, and so on all the rest of the day. The omnibuses that commence early, finish their day’s work about nine. Those who go on duty later wait and bring home the pleasure-seekers returning from the theatres and exhibitions, and other places of public resort. For the accommodation of these latter classes extra omnibuses are required. Some of the omnibuses, we must add, work early and late; but then they have a good rest in the middle of the day. It is a hard life, that of an omnibus—citizens are apt to get fat, and stones are very trying. At a considerable expense, every ’bus must be done up and repainted and revarnished every two years. The original cost of each ’bus is about £120. They are all built in the yard, of iron and good oak and ash. In one part of the premises there is a steam-engine at work, sawing wood and turning machinery. In another part there are ’buses in all stages of development—here a frame, there a complete body, and there one with wheels waiting for the varnish, and paint and velvet cushions and plate glass, which shall make it differ from what it now is, as does Sappho
“At her toilette’s greasy task,
With Sappho fragrant at an evening mask.”
But let us return to the horses. We have spoken of those in good health and in active work. Some of them are really capital cattle; and I was shown a pair of chestnuts worth at least a hundred pounds. We will now proceed to the infirmary, just premising that in so enormous a yard every precaution is taken against disease. A man is constantly at work whitewashing the stables. This takes him four months, and by the time he has done he has to commence anew. The infirmary consists of a series of roomy, brick stables, very warm and snug, where the dumb animals are treated more tenderly than many Christians. In another part there is a large inclosure, more than half covered, but open on one side for the recovery of the horses, who, having nothing particularly the matter with them, but who have lived too fast or worked too much, require a month or two of rest. The aged and the incurable are drafted off and sent to the repository, and sold for a few pounds. Let me add, even these horses continue their philanthropic career. No longer engaged in conveying the verdant youth of the metropolis to business or pleasure, they drag greens from door to door. The shoeing forge is close by. The physicking and shoeing is taken by contract, by one man. He must have enough to do, as in this yard and the one close by are generally a thousand horses. The food, prepared by steam, is ground at the depÔt in Bell-lane.
Now for a word about the men. There are about three hundred in the Highbury yard. The coachmen have six shillings, the conductors four shillings a day, and are paid daily. The horse-keepers have a guinea a week. The artisans employed in the carriage department earn from thirty to fifty shillings a week. There are two sick clubs, one for the coachmen and conductors, who pay sixpence a week, and receive when ill fourteen shillings a week—and one for the horse-keepers, who pay threepence a week, and receive when on the sick list ten shillings weekly. On Sunday evening Divine Service is held in the harness-room, fitted up for that purpose. This was commenced by Sir Horace St. Paul. Once a year a grand tea-meeting is held, at which all the servants of the company, with their wives and families, are present, and addresses are delivered by Sir Horace St. Paul, Mr. Hanbury, M.P., and other philanthropists; and for those who wish to improve a leisure hour, a small reading-room is opened, access to which may be had on the payment of a penny weekly. On the table are some newspapers and illustrated periodicals, and thus not only is a little mental stimulus provided, but the men are not driven to spend their money in a public-house. This is a feature of the yard which cannot be too highly commended, and which I am sure if it were known the general public would be happy to support. The men are satisfied, I think. One of them I had known in better days seemed glad to have secured a berth as a driver. One informed me that he had £100, which he had told his Missus to draw out of the savings bank and place in the custody of the Royal British; but his Missus was obstinate, and her obstinacy saved the cash. Some of the men are teetotallers, and those who wish to attend church or chapel on the Sunday can do so. It is an advantage in a great company that it cannot resort to the little meanness and persecution of which a single proprietor may be guilty. The latter may underpay his servants, keep them at work all day, or take every advantage of them in every possible way. But if a great company does this, the public cries shame. But we must be off. Once more we find ourselves in the road; a ’bus comes up—we climb the roof—we have seen baronets and M.P.’s get inside; an opposition ’bus is behind; “All right!” cries the conductor. Merrily we rush on, exclaiming mentally—
“Ore favete omnes et tempora cingite ramis.”
As a contrast, let me quote the following from Miss Meteyard’s essay on the history and present condition of the Metropolitan omnibus drivers and conductors, published in Cassell’s “Working Man’s Friend and Family Instructor,” in 1850. Our readers will see that in the last few years a great and desirable change has been made. Miss Meteyard says:—“As we have said, 11,000 individuals are connected with the omnibus labour of the metropolis. Of these, 6,000 are drivers and conductors, who work on an average rather more than sixteen hours a day; namely, from before eight o’clock in the morning till after twelve o’clock at night. The labour connected with railway omnibuses is still severer than this, being twenty hours each third day, and fourteen on alternate ones. Nor does the seventh day bring rest, as in most laborious occupations; work goes on in precisely the same manner; and, as on some lines of road, the traffic is greater on Sundays than on other days, the work is so far heavier. During the number of hours the men are employed they have no rest. The driver never leaves his box, except during a few occasional minutes whilst his horses are changed; and he has, therefore, to take his meals during these periods, and usually upon the coach-box, as, where the men have wives and families, some member of them may be often seen handing up the tea or dinner in a can or basket. As the married portion of these men universally say, they ‘never see their children except as they may look at them in bed;’ and as for home, in its commonly-received sense, or of any of the moral duties connected with it, the one is unknown, and the other is impossible. The case of the conductors is precisely the same, neither having a day’s rest for months together, for if they take one they have to pay a substitute; and in many cases the proprietors object to a day’s relaxation, and will not hire men who need or may ask for it, such being against the laws of their particular association. For a loss of time they are fined 2s. 6d., and for a second or third offence, suspended from a week’s employment, or else dismissed. Against stringent rules of this kind we should take no objection, were the hours of labour in any degree of reasonable length; in that case, stringency would be doubly effective, both as regarded the interest of the proprietary and public convenience.”
“Looking at this preposterous amount of daily labour, and the evils which, directly and indirectly, must flow therefrom, in relation to pauperism, crime, and a low average of life, we should expect to find omnibus labour highly remunerated. Yet such is not the case. On some roads the drivers receive no more than from twelve to fifteen shillings for the work of seven days; and out of this they are compelled by their employers to pay six shillings weekly as beer-money to horse-keepers and stable-keepers. Of course, with wages at so low a par, and so much reduced by outgoings, men would scarcely be found willing to undertake this week’s work of a hundred and twelve hours, unless each driver were allowed, as is the case, the privilege of an outside passenger, on the box beside him, each distance he drives, whether the fare be sixpence or threepence. Each driver drives ten or twelve distances per day, each distance to and fro being about six miles; and thus, in fine weather, when the generality of male passengers prefer the outside, and the coach-box is sure of an occupant, the driver’s perquisites may mount up to a fair weekly sum. But in wet and bad weather the case is very different, and these men drive the whole day through without a single passenger. This may possibly account for the variable temper of omnibus-drivers, who, reversing the ordinary process of things, are surly in fine, and courteous in wet weather, and, caring nothing for patronage whilst the sun shines, grow civil in times of frost and rain, and proffer, with parental solicitude, cape, wrapper, and apron.
“Though acting in a more responsible capacity, the conductors, unlike the drivers, are only daily servants, and liable, and often subject to, dismissal, at a moment’s notice. Men once thus dismissed are rarely employed as conductors again, it being a rule with these combined proprietors never to employ a man in this capacity who has acted as conductor in any previous situation.”
