282 Notes for the Month. [Serr. 
he was mad enough to offer his mediation upon’ a question of public 
arrangement to the King of England, as that his Majesty personally 
should have failed to expire with laughter, had any such “ kind inter- 
cession” been proposed. But country news-papers are read by a large 
class of persons whose means of information are limited; and, to suffer 
a paragraph like this to pass without notice, might lead to a belief that 
it was possible for persons of decent feeling to read it without contempt. 
The Hackney-coach proprietors of the metropolis, who have, for some 
time past, found their trade, more than their vehicles, upon the “ go,” 
have held a meeting at the sign of the “ Hercules’ Pillars,” in Great 
Queen Street, to receive the report of a petition laid before the Lords of 
the Treasury, against their opponents, the “ cabriolet” drivers, and to 
consider of farther measures for obtaining what they call “ fare” play- 
The owner of the coach “ No. 1’ of all England was called to the chair ; 
and, mixed up with a good deal of erroneous philosophy, the parties 
seemed most of them to have some glimmerings as to the real causes of 
their ill condition. 
The petition presented to the Lords of the Treasury, prayed, that, for 
the relief of the suffermg hackney-coach proprietors, an act might be 
passed, as nearly as we can collect, to the following effect :—Ist. That 
the fares of the hackney-coaches should be reduced by the sum of two- 
pence per mile.—2d. That all drivers should be compelled to have 
licences.—3d. That stage-coaches should be prevented from taking up 
or setting down passengers in the streets ; and that all “ branch coaches” 
(coaches which the stage proprietors send round town to collect pas- 
sengers from their different booking-offices) should be stopped.—And, 
4th. that “ plates” should be made transferrable, from coaches to cab- 
riolets, and vice versd, at the pleasure of the holder. 
Now the petition of the hackney-coachman, even although we can only 
agree in the propriety of a portion of it, deserved a better reception than 
the reply from the Lords of the Treasury, that, “ after due considera- 
tion, they did not deem it expedient that its suggestions should be 
adopted.” The third and fourth clauses—those curtailing the privileges 
of the stage-coaches—are wholly inadmissible. It is true that a change 
is wanted in the arrangement ; but itis a change the other way ; and the 
increased and increasing extent of London on every side, renders it dis- 
graceful to the controllers of our police that the restrictions upon “ short. 
stages,” as they are called, have not long since been removed altogether. 
Upon what principle is it that an individual, whose business happens to 
call him from Oxford-street to Blackfriars, or from Charing Cross to the 
Bank, when a conveyance as good as he desires for the distance can 
be supplied to him for nine-pence, should be compelled to use one 
which costs half-a-crown or three shillings? Why must such a person 
be compelled to walk on foot, through the heat of July, or the rain and 
mud of February and December, merely because he cannot afford to pay 
three shillings for a ride, which a hundred traders (but for the prohibi- 
tion of the law) would be glad to furnish him for one? Here is no duty 
paid to the state ; no supply carried to the public revenue ; which aman 
may be consoled for having contributed even in an objectionable shape ; 
because, if he had not paid it in that form, he must have paid it in 
some other. The tax is merely imposed for the benefit of our friends, 
the “« hackney-coachmen,” who have no earthly title to inflict any such 
penalty upon the public ; and, whom in fact, it does nol serve when all 
