The rickshaw surely has the laugh of the hansom-cab, patented this day one hundred years ago by Joseph Aloysius Hansom York. The rickshaw still plies for hire in many an eastern city. The hansom, after a brilliant eareer—Disraeli makes Lothair call it the gondola of London and that was written in 1870—went out ike a snuffed candle before the advance of the taxi-cab somewhere about the time of the Great War. Now, atter the theatres have closed, it is possible that, through Leicester Square and down Piccadilly, there will pass a smart ghost. of the once popular vehicle. The phantom is real but its appearance is merely due to an astute appreciation of the profit to be made Out of tantiment at that time of night, Taxicabs came into London in 1007; ten years earlier Queen Vie~ toria had celebrated her Diamond Jubilee and if anyone then had threatened the hansom with extinction in fifteen years, the very "growlers" who hated' hansoms would have scoffed as at some wild story too good to be true, Majesty's reign it still held tts own. Indeed, it did not fade away like the Old Soldier. It seemed to. be blotted out in one night as it were by the mechanical vehicle. The hansom drivers were wise in their generation. After they found that their mocking and islewle bruised the taxicabs in vain, they took steps to learn to manipulate gears and brakes. Their unequalled Knowledge of the three-miles radius and beyond was their big asset. They carried it to the taxicab, so that at least one of their traditions remained. The taximeter itself was originally intended for the hansom, but its coming coincided with that of the motor-car so the incongruous association of the Scotsman's palpitator with the horse is almost forgotten.
The taxi, with all its oficlency and adaptability, can never quite take the place of the hansom in the Londoner's affections. Let a London historian speak with the voice of Mr. J. B. Booth; It is one of those rarest of all days—a perfect London June, and as the hansom swings down the Haymarket the alr is like cham-Page. The sun gleams and glances on the glossy skins of the horses; the brass-work of the Why the Movement is So Often Misunderstood by the can understand, but. the underlying [meaning of coat-buttoning Is tidiness Intelligentsia: Its Effect on Common People fand neatness, From buttoning coats, the New Life Movement will rapidly pass on to untidiness in ddnanclal matters, and corruption is) then due for a cleansing.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.