But An American Finds No Fault With
The Present Arrangement; He Is Amply Satisfied With It.
Personally I can think of no more exciting phase of the night life
of the two greatest cities of Europe than the stunt of dodging
taxicabs.
In London the peril that lurks for you at every turning
is not the result of carelessness on the part of the drivers; it
is due to the rules of the road. Afoot, an Englishman meeting you
on the sidewalk turns, as we do, to the right hand; but mounted
he turns to the left. The foot passenger's prerogative of turning
to the right was one of the priceless heritages wrested from King
John by the barons at Runnymede; but when William the Conqueror
rode into the Battle of Hastings he rode a left-handed horse - and
so, very naturally and very properly, everything on hoof or wheel
in England has consistently turned to the left ever since. I took
some pains to look up the original precedents for these facts and
to establish them historically.
The system suits the English mind, but it is highly confusing to
an American who gets into the swirl of traffic at a crossing - and
every London crossing is a swirl of traffic most of the time - and
looks left when he should look right, and looks right when he
should be looking left until the very best he can expect, if he
survive at all, is cross-eyes and nervous prostration.
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