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By Root 15927 0

her with fate. If there be a sick child, who complains, do you complain of people who bring sick children into an omnibus. If there be many passengers, delay them when you get in or out. A good plan is to require the young gentleman in attendance to change a five dollar note, just as you leave, and pay your fare. A wet umbrella and a dirty dog are useful in a full omnibus. When you enter and leave, tread upon the company’s toes; it hurts their feelings, but yet makes an impression. Just now the omnibus is very useful. If a riot breaks out, you can ride into it in a few minutes; you can also ride in an omnibus to Fairmount, and drink the pure warm water, just as it comes from the reservoir. But as it is near dinner time we shall leave off writing, and take to riding in an Omnibus.

A MOVING CHAPTER

(PART II)

A MOVING CHAPTER CONTINUED. — In consideration of these times of popular movement, we ventured, yesterday, to say a few words on the people’s coach and pair — the Omnibus. Following up the subject, we shall now offer a running commentary on the Cab, with the reader’s kind permission. This asking permission, however, after the thing is printed and poked under the reader’s nose, is very much like humbug — but such is the fashion.

The derivation of the word cab is not quite certain. According to Dr. Lumberskull, of Gutt-stuffin University, the word comes from the lately discovered antediluvian Arabic. In that language, caba means go-ahead — hence a cab, a thing for going ahead. But, with due deference to the doctor’s erudition, we are inclined to think that the word comes from the Greek. In the Isle of Naxos, the word kabos means tub. Now it is believed by some, and we are of that number, that the tub of the George Munday of Greece, Diogenes, was not one of your vulgar washingtubs, but a circular box, on wheels, drawn, probably, by a donkey — possibly by a Newfoundland dog. This being the fact, the weight of evidence inclines to the Greek; for the word kabos is in Schrevilius, and has not been lost, as we have shown, in the modern dialect. It probably floated, centuries ago, from the mainland to the island, where it has remained in use to this time. The word cab, however, sounds like English, inasmuch as it expresses the nature of the thing itself, for it has a squat, angular sound — cab! Carriage, an easy sound; omnibus, a heavy import. In this thing of the sound of words echoing their sense, the English is remarkable. For example, Christchurchsteeple — a lofty, pointed sound; sugarhousemolasses — “linked sweetness, long drawn out,’’ it strikes on the ear.

You can get into a difficulty gratis, at any time, but it requires twenty-five cents to get into a cab. The omnibus lines are as straight as those of a regiment; the lines of a cab are, on the contrary, all sorts; squares, rhomboids, cones, circles — whatever you are willing to pay for. As it is known that cabmen, in imitation of their illustrious ancestors, hackmen, are in a conspiracy to make all the money they can, and in which they differ, totally, from the rest of the world, the City Fathers have determined to put them down in this matter; accordingly, their prices are regulated by a special ordinance of the Select and Common Councils; so that gentlemen worth ten thousand a year cannot be ruined by being charged twelve cents too much cab-hire.

When it is considered that all the cabmen, without exception, are millionaires (of this fact we are confidentially assured), the wisdom of the ordinance is apparent. The aristocracy of apple women, of hot-corn venders, of charcoal men, of that particular man who makes such a devil of a noise with his “trallalal lemon ice-cream — and the vanilla, tool” should all read in this a severe lesson, that Law can protect the poor people in Chestnut and Walnut and Arch streets against their extortions. But we are deriving eloquence from a sense of indignation, while our desire is to be simply analytical.

The character of the cabman is soon summed up. If you approach within forty feet of one of them, he roars out “Cab,