welcome addition to his income by watching 'busmen's manœuvres. But it must be very embarrassing to these "spots" as they sit, unobtrusively, in the omnibus to see facing them, as an advertisement of Sapolio, Lady Macbeth's exhortation, "Out, out, damned spot!"
Private inspectors are by no means a modern addition to the staff of an omnibus company. Shillibeer, as stated in Chapter II., employed them a few weeks after he placed the first English omnibuses on the road, and succeeding omnibus proprietors followed his example. The duties of these early inspectors were not very arduous, for, as there were only shilling and sixpenny fares, known as "longs" and "shorts," and but two outside seats, it was a simple matter to check the amount received by a conductor during a journey. The defalcations of conductors were, by the means of these inspectors, kept from being extensive, but when omnibuses had been in existence about fifteen years one of the largest proprietors received reports from his "spot" which he could not understand. The "spot" would state that a certain omnibus, on a certain journey, had carried, say, twelve "longs" and sixteen "shorts," but the conductor
