In New York There Are Street Omnibuses As We Have - There Are Street
Cars Such As Last Year We Declined To Have, And There Are Very
Excellent Public Carriages; But None Of These Give You The
Accommodation Of A Cab, Nor Can All Of Them Combined Do So.
The
omnibuses, though clean and excellent, were to me very
unintelligible.
They have no conductor to them. To know their
different lines and usages a man should have made a scientific
study of the city. To those going up and down Broadway I became
accustomed, but in them I was never quite at my ease. The money
has to be paid through a little hole behind the driver's back, and
should, as I learned at last, be paid immediately on entrance. But
in getting up to do this I always stumbled about, and it would
happen that when with considerable difficulty I had settled my own
account, two or three ladies would enter, and would hand me,
without a word, some coins with which I had no life-long
familiarity, in order that I might go through the same ceremony on
their account. The change I would usually drop into the straw, and
then there would arise trouble and unhappiness. Before I became
aware of that law as to instant payment, bells used to be rung at
me, which made me uneasy. I knew I was not behaving as a citizen
should behave, but could not compass the exact points of my
delinquency.
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