Ticket-inspectors are known to all Londoners, but few people are aware that the omnibus companies have also private inspectors, whose duty it is to ride about in their omnibuses, as ordinary passengers, for the purpose of noting and reporting anything that affects their interests adversely. These people, who are called “spots” and “wrong ’uns” by the ’busmen, are not beloved by conductors and coachmen, for the simple reason that they never know when they have one on their omnibus. The man in evening dress who enters the omnibus in the Strand after the theatres have closed may be one; so, too, may be the man with a bag of workman’s tools who rides up to town by the first omnibus. The daintily dressed young lady who enters at Peter Robinson’s or William Whiteley’s may, from her seat in the corner, be regarding the conductor with an interest which is not born of admiration, and the palpably retired officer who gets in at Piccadilly may be earning a welcome addition to his income by watching ’busmen’s manœuvres. But it must be very embarrassing to these “spots” as they sit, unobtrusively, in the omnibus to see facing them, as an advertisement of Sapolio, Lady Macbeth’s exhortation, “Out, out, damned spot!” Private inspectors are by no means a modern addition to the staff of an omnibus company. Shillibeer, as stated in Chapter II., employed them a few weeks after he placed the first English omnibuses on the road, and succeeding omnibus proprietors followed his example. The duties of these early inspectors were not very arduous, for, as there were only shilling and sixpenny fares, known as “longs” and “shorts,” and but two outside seats, it was a simple matter to check the amount received by a conductor during a journey. The defalcations of conductors were, by the means of these inspectors, kept from being extensive, but when omnibuses had been in existence about fifteen years one of the largest proprietors received reports from his “spot” which he could not understand. The “spot” would state that a certain omnibus, on a certain journey, had carried, say, twelve “longs” and sixteen “shorts,” but the conductor would pay in the fares of fourteen “longs” and seventeen or eighteen “shorts.” To unravel this mystery the proprietor persuaded a relation, who was unknown to the ’busmen, to ride in a certain omnibus on the same journey as his “spot,” and check who was really right. This man’s reports agreed with the “spot’s.” Both declared that the conductor had collected less money than he paid in. The amateur “spot” then rode two journeys in that omnibus when the professional man was not there, and on those occasions it was found that the conductor paid in only about three-quarters of the money he received. Eventually the conductor was arrested for fraud, and confessed how he had been working his omnibus. He had bribed the proprietor’s clerk to tell him who the “spot” was, and where he could be seen. As soon as he had received that