But the coming of the new order in London locomotion dates appropriately from the year 1900. Early in that year _Mr. Punch_ describes his experiences on a trip from the Monument to Stockwell in what he calls the "Sardine-box railway," dwelling on the scrimmages of passengers and the rocking of the trains, and endorsing the company's advertisement that it was the "warmest line in London." Criticism gives place to eulogy in the summer, when the fairy "Electra" gives the Steam Locomotive Underground Demon notice to quit, and _Punch_ adopts the phrase, "The Twopenny Tube," from his lively but short-lived contemporary the _Londoner_. "Horace in London" indites a "Carmen Tubulare" in honour of the new Underground, and a burlesque article is based on the notion that the ozone generated in the Tubes would lead to a monstrous growth of appetite. The new and highly irregular verb, "Tu be," is conjugated in all tenses and moods, beginning: "I tube, thou payest tuppence; he Yerkes[6]; we get a hustle on; ye block the gangways; they palm off 'bus tickets." Complaints of over-crowding testified to the popularity of the new method of transit, and the voice of the "strap-hanger" was soon loud in the land. The congestion on the suburban railways had moved one of _Punch's_ bards to poetic remonstrance as early as 1901:-- We wage no far-off conflict with Afridi or with Boer, A present peril we must face, our foes are at the door; Brave must he be of heart, and as a flint must set his face, Who in the train at Finsbury Park would struggle for a place. [Footnote 6: Charles Tyson Yerkes, the American financier who, after a chequered early life, became a railway magnate and took a leading part in organizing and financing the London electrical railways.] [Illustration: "THEY ORDER THESE THINGS BETTER IN FRANCE" FRENCH TOURIST (to Father Thames): "Dis, donc, mon vieux, when does the next boat start on your beautiful river?" FATHER THAMES: "It doesn't start. I ain't allowed to have any boats."] Six years later _Punch_ describes "rack-hanging" on the suburban lines of the Great Eastern as one stage worse than "strap-hanging" on the Underground. Another and more formidable outcome of the subterranean extension of London traffic was noted in 1913 _à propos_ of the cracks in St. Paul's. _Punch's_ Londoner exults complacently over the impending downfall, so long as he is swiftly transported from his home to his office:-- I thunder down to work each morn, And some historic shrine Must have its matchless fabric torn To get me there at nine; And when I gather up my traps, As sundown sets me free A nation's monuments collapse, To take me home to tea. To parody Lord John Manners's couplet:-- Let fanes and monuments in ruins lie, But give us still our new Mobility.