Читать книгу The Children's Book of London - G. E. Mitton - Страница 15

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London is so large that it takes a long time to get from one end to the other, and the men who go down to the City for their work and come back every day want means of getting about cheaply and quickly. So there are omnibuses and trains and cabs in numbers. But the trains in London do not run above ground—there would be no room for them in the crowded streets; so there are railways in the earth, deep down beneath all the houses, and on them there are trains that run round in a circle. Those of you who have frequently been by the Underground Railway think nothing of it; to you it seems quite natural, for you are used to it. But it really is a most astonishing piece of work, as you would realize if you saw it for the first time. Just imagine how long it must have taken to cut out and carry away all the masses of earth that had to be removed to make a tunnel of such a length—a tunnel which should run right round underneath London. The most wonderful thing is that the houses under which it ran did not fall down and break through into it. But that has never happened, for the men who built the tunnel made it very strong, and lined it with bricks. And all day long, while people are walking about in the streets and horses are trotting in the daylight, down below the trains in the underground are running, running in the dark. It cannot be a very pleasant life to be an engine-driver on this railway: it must be almost like the life of a pitman who works down in the depths of the earth; yet the men themselves seem quite happy. The worst part of the railway used to be that as there are not many places where the smoke and steam can get out into the air, they hung in the tunnels and made the air very thick and bad, and there was, consequently, nearly always a sort of fog down there, and it was unpleasant to breathe the thick air; but all this has been remedied now, for the trains are run by electricity instead of steam. There are other underground railways in London also run by electricity, and they go through different districts, so by means of one or the other people can get near to almost any street where they want to go to visit their friends or to shop. In these, the fares are on the same system as on other railways: you pay for your ticket according to the distance you wish to go; but in the first one you paid twopence for all distances alike—twopence if you wanted to go right from the West End to the City, and twopence all the same if you were going to get out at the next station. Therefore some people nicknamed this railway 'The Twopenny Tube.'

Now, besides these underground trains, which are not seen, there are many huge motor-omnibuses to convey people about the streets above ground. These omnibuses are painted in very bright colours—generally red—and the newest of all are made very conveniently so that the passengers inside can mostly sit facing the way they are going, as they do outside. You can go inside or out, and in summer it is a very good way of seeing London to go on the top of an omnibus and watch all that goes on in the streets below; in the old days the horse omnibuses were often stuffy inside, with no windows to open at all, and it is a wonder anyone could be found to go in them. When the motor-omnibuses are full they carry a great many people. Those of the latest pattern carry fifty-four passengers inside and out. There is now a regulation to make omnibuses stop only at certain fixed places which are shown by sign-boards with the numbers of the 'buses on them. This saves the constant stopping and starting again, which is trying for the driver, and wastes much time. People are often very inconsiderate about this; they never think of getting off if the omnibus stops just a little way before the place they are going to. I have seen a woman—I'm afraid women are the worst in this respect—wave her umbrella to the conductor of an omnibus that was going at a good pace, so the omnibus stopped, and the woman took quite a long time to go across the street to it; and when she reached it she asked if it were going to the place she wanted, and it was not, so all the stopping and waiting had been for nothing. The motor 'buses go very much faster than the old horse 'buses, and as they carry, also, many more people, altogether, as we have seen, they do more work in the way of conveyance altogether.

You can go a long way in an omnibus for a few pence, but taxi-cabs are much more expensive; they are also very comfortable—no stopping and waiting for other people then. You are carried swiftly and smoothly to your destination, unless you are held up by the traffic; and you always know just how much you will have to pay, as the little clock face beside the driver marks up the extra payment as the cab covers the ground.

The motor cabs in London are more comfortable than the hansoms were. But the old hansom was very good for seeing in the streets, as the driver was behind and not in front of you. The four-wheel horse cabs seem very slow to us now, but they carried more luggage than the taxi-cabs can. Some of us think that the old omnibuses and cabs were more interesting than the modern ones.

I will tell you a story an omnibus horse told me. His name is Billy, and he lives in the outskirts of London.

'Oh yes,' he says, 'it's a deal better than being a cab-horse, this is. They think themselves very grand, and turn up their noses at us. Why, yes, I've known a cab-horse that turned his nose up so high he could never get it down again into his nose-bag when he wanted to eat his dinner, and they had to have a special sort of nose-bag made for him. Fact! And all along of an old bus-horse a-speaking to him friendly-like as they stood side by side one day. Silly things! they're running all day long, and never know how far they'll have to go, while I just have my one journey a day, and then I go back to my stable. You ought to see that stable. I live up two stories high, and I walk upstairs to bed every night. What are you laughing at? It's true. There are three stories at our place, and for staircases to reach the top ones there are long sloping boards, like those you've seen put for chickens to get into a hen-house, with little boards across to make steps, only, of course, ours are a bit bigger than the chickens'. Why, yes, don't laugh; I could not walk up a chicken-ladder, could I? In our stable we stand in long rows, a row on each side, with our heels together in the middle, and heads to the walls, and between the two rows of heels there's just enough room for a man to pass. Kick? Why, no; only the bad uns do that, and when they've done it once Tom (that's our stableman) he puts a rope across their heels to keep 'em in, and to show people they must take care. There's plenty to eat, and we don't have a bad time at all. There's eleven of us belong to one omnibus; that's two each time for five journeys, and one over. Well, in the mornings I go out with old Sally perhaps, and we trot up to the City and back; it's a matter of about eight miles each way. We don't have to go fast, but it's stop, stop, stop whenever a silly old woman wants to get on and get off, and it's a pull starting again, I can tell you. We know when the conductor rings the bell that means to start, and off we go without the driver telling us, and when the conductor rings again that's to stop; it's easy learnt. At the other end, the City end, we have perhaps a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, and then we come back. The whole thing doesn't take much over three hours, and we're done for that day; but our driver he has to go on again with another pair, and then another, and so five times there and back. It takes a long time that; but then, of course, he's only got to sit up on the bus, and he doesn't pull it, and every second day he is off for two journeys. Once in ten days we get a day off, a holiday, while the odd horse, number eleven, he takes the bus in the place of one of us. We have a doctor, too, to ourselves, and when we're ill we get medicine just as you do. Did you say that you had heard a bus-horse didn't live very long—that the work killed him? Well, maybe; it depends on the horse. There's a mare there fifteen years old, and quite good yet; but seven years does for most of us. What's that you're giving me? Sugar, did you say? I don't know about that—I'd rather not; but if you had an apple now, or a bit of bread, I'll eat it and welcome.'

You see, he was a common horse, this—not a gentleman, but a good-tempered, nice fellow, that wouldn't give his driver much trouble. But they're not all like that. Listen now to a cab-horse.

'Did you say you'd been talking to a bus-horse? Nasty low creatures, not fit to talk to! Now I can tell you all you want to know. Yes, I'm only a cab-horse now, it's true, but once I was in a gentleman's carriage—one of a pair, with a coachman and footman on the box, and my lady herself used to pat my nose and give me sugar. They were grand times then—that is, they seem grand when I think of them now—very little to do, and we were scrubbed and polished until our coats were like satin. In the afternoon we danced round the Park. Yes, I say danced, because there was a horrid thing called a bearing-rein that hurt us so much that we had to dance and throw out our legs, and people said it was splendid. It made me feel so angry that I didn't know what to do. But then I had a bad temper from the beginning, and it's my temper that has done for me. One day I wheeled round and leaped over the traces, and kicked the coachman hard. We were standing in the mews, and I dashed out and ran away, and the other horse fell down, and the carriage was smashed. Well, then I was sold, and—— But I'm not going to tell you about that. Yes, I know it's my own fault, and I know I shouldn't have been a cab-horse if I'd behaved; but I was wicked, and I used to bite, and now I've been whipped and beaten until I daren't do anything. Yes, even now I kick, and I hate my life and I hate my driver. He gives me sugar sometimes, too; but that's just because he doesn't want me to run away and dash him off his box, but I shall some day. I shall smash him up against a lamp-post just because I hate everyone. Oh, it's not a fine life, I can tell you. It's all very well when I stand here waiting; but perhaps just when I've got my nose into my bag and begun to eat I hear a sharp whistle twice, and that means someone wants a hansom, and my master whisks away my bag, jumps on to his box, and gives me a cut that makes me furious, and we go galloping round the streets to see where the whistle comes from. And when we find the right house, where someone is waiting, perhaps a man jumps in, and says: "To the station as fast as you can, and half a crown if you do it in a quarter of an hour." Well, of course, it's my master who gets the money, but it's I that have to earn it. So we tear off full speed, and other things get in the way, and I have to pull up suddenly, and the horrid curb-bit cuts my mouth till I could rear with the pain. Then off again, and at last, all hot and angry, we dash up to the station, and the man inside leaps out and throws up the money and runs off. Then my master strokes me down, and says: "Jenny, old girl, I'm sorry to fluster you so, but we must make a bit for the bairns at home, eh, old girl?" And he pats me, and I'd bite his hand if I could. As if I cared about his bairns! And so it goes on all day long, and at night I'm in a nasty stuffy stable with other horses coming and going, until it makes me wild. I'll be glad when it's all over, I can tell you; but I have heard it said that there are worse things than even my life.'

That horse, you see, was not good-tempered, and so even the kind cabman could not make her happy.

There are still many horses in London drawing carts of all kinds and vans, and even private carriages, but every year they become fewer.