front of the fareboard was running from Oxford Circus to Hendon, _viâ_ Kilburn. It was a most uncomfortable seat, but, nevertheless, it was nearly always occupied, for the conductor, being a very amusing fellow, had a knack of quickly soothing passengers who protested against sitting on a small, cramped seat. Soon after the removal of the bookcases, some of the Hammersmith omnibuses acquired the habit of loitering, and thereby obstructing the streets. By Act of Parliament, the police had the power to take into custody the driver of any public vehicle who obstructed the high road and refused to move on. One morning they exercised their power by pulling two omnibus-drivers from their boxes and taking them to the police-station. The following day the drivers were fined forty shillings or a month’s imprisonment. For a few days there was no loitering on the Hammersmith Road. But one Saturday evening an omnibus pulled up at Knightsbridge in such a position as to obstruct the traffic. A policeman shouted fiercely to the driver to move on, but the coachman calmly shook his head and would not budge an inch. Two policemen promptly rushed forward to pull him from his seat and take him into custody, but, to their astonishment, found that he was chained to the box and the chain fastened by a huge padlock. Their attempts to remove him were useless. Then several other omnibuses came along, and pulled up close to the first one. The drivers of these were also chained to their boxes, and amused themselves and the crowd by chaffing the police and shaking their chains at them. After remaining at Knightsbridge for some considerable time, they drove away in triumph, only, however, to be fined a few days later. About this time shopkeepers began to complain that omnibuses prevented their customers driving up to their doors in their carriages, and Mr. Shufflebotham, a silk mercer of Ludgate Hill, championing their cause, applied for summonses against twenty-four conductors for loitering. Under an old Act of Parliament, any stage-coach driver taking up or setting down passengers in the streets was liable to a penalty of not less than £5. All the conductors were fined, but public opinion was by no means favourable to the shopkeepers, and further attempts to prove that private carriages had a greater right to the public streets than omnibuses failed completely. On one occasion an alderman had before him a hundred and twenty conductors charged with the fearful offence--in tradesmen’s eyes--of stopping their omnibuses a few moments in front of a shop when a carriage was waiting to pull up there. The alderman discharged every one of the defendants, and his action was so popular that, until a year or two ago, no one had the impudence to suggest that the days of class legislation should be restored--that omnibuses which carry twenty-six passengers should be turned out of the main streets to make room for private carriages with their burden of four.