them soon made them as remunerative as they had been under Shillibeer's management. In fact, the New Road route was the best patronised, and, in 1837, there were fifty-four omnibuses on that road. The fares were then sixpence any distance.
In the same year that Shillibeer took Morton into partnership, there were several lines of omnibuses running in opposition to him, for the old short-stage-coach proprietors were now alive to the fact that there was much money to be made out of omnibuses; but the original vehicles had the reputation of being excellently conducted, and, consequently, were preferred by the public. Aware of this, the proprietors of some opposition omnibuses had the impudence to paint on the panels of their vehicles the word "Shillibeer." Shillibeer then named his omnibuses "Shillibeer's Original Omnibuses."
Some of the opposition proprietors, however, were men of sufficient enterprise to object to remaining mere imitators of Shillibeer, and tried their hardest to make their omnibuses more attractive than those of their great rival. One man made all his coachmen wear a wooden ring on each arm with strings attached to them which
