Page:Omnibuses and Cabs.djvu/75

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Conductors' Behaviour
55

anxiety was to prevent his men growing rich at his expense. Knowing from experience what an omnibus could earn in various seasons and weather, he took every precaution to guard against his men retaining as large a portion of the earnings as he himself had pocketed when a conductor. The men who paid daily the sum he demanded were the conductors he preferred, and these usually were the passenger-swindling, bullying specimens, and thoroughly deserved their name—"cads."

In January, 1841, the Times printed the following description of two classes of conductors :—

The Well-conducted conductor

1. Never bawls out "Bank—Bank—City—Bank!" because he knows that passengers are always as much on the look-out for him as he is for them, so that these loud and hideous shouts are quite unnecessary.

2. Never bangs the omnibus door after he has let a passenger in or out, but makes it a rule to shut it as quietly as possible.

3. Always takes care that there are two check strings or straps running along the roof of the omnibus, on the inside, and communicating with the arms of the driver by two