disappearance of the "growler" and the hansom. In this context may be quoted the epitaph based on the fact that a French traveller had taken "Job Masters" to be a personal name, and published in 1909:-- His horses were old and his carriages were older, But they were all we could get and we had to put up with them. His watchwords were Livery and Bait, and he will be sadly missed. His end was Petrol. [Illustration: BOGEY OR BENEFACTOR? L.C.C.: "Ha, ha! You must learn to love me!"] [Illustration: NOTICE TO QUIT THE FAIRY ELECTRA (to Steam Locomotive Underground Demon): "Now they've seen me, I fancy _your_ days are numbered." (Central London Electric Railway opened by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales--Wednesday, June 27, 1900.)] [Sidenote: _The L.C.C. Trams_] On the vexed question of the extension of the tramway system to central London _Punch_ did not maintain an inflexible consistency. In 1905 he supported the L.C.C. in their effort to carry the tram system across Westminster Bridge and along the Embankment, and when their Bill, passed in the Commons, was thrown out by the Lords, he showed Lord Halsbury, the leader of the Opposition on this occasion, as an out-of-date Horatius, _Punch_ informing him that "this isn't ancient Rome. This is modern London, and you've just got to move on." Yet in 1907 the congestion of empty trams between Blackfriars and Westminster Bridge moved him to ridicule the L.C.C.'s "Spectacular Vacuum Embankment Trams," and to paint a fancy portrait of a grocer's assistant who had actually succeeded in riding in one of them. Later on, again, on the eve of the War, _Punch_ made it clear that he had no sympathy with the L.C.C. in their obstinate preference for trams as opposed to motor-buses. The L.C.C. tram was "beaten on points" by its more flexible rival. "Hard lines on me," says the tram. "Yes," retorts the motor-bus, "it's always hard lines with you, my boy. That's what's the matter; you can't side-step."