264 Notes for the Month. [Serr 
“ resurrection-men.” And, for the matter of charge,.as the practice 
stands, extortion is part of the purchase. Every man who hires a 
hackney-coach expects, as a necessary corollary to the act, either to have 
a squabble, or to pay fifty per cent. over the amount of his fare: which 
is practically so much added to the hiring rate of the conveyance. Now 
we cannot expect to make these conductors scrupulous people; but 
there is still room for amendment ; and we see no course by which that 
amendment is likely to be attained, so readily, as by subjecting them 
all to the control of a licence. At present, the means of redress, where 
evil has been done, are (practically) slight. A man feels indisposed to 
wait several hours in “ summoning” a rogue by. whom he has been 
cheated of eighteen-pence; and, besides, he feels the inutility of the 
proceeding. He takes another coach, and, within fifteen minutes, is 
cheated again. There is obviously no good effected, unless the whole 
1,200 dignitaries of the box had but one person, so that he could take 
them all to “ Essex Street’’ at the same time., A few examples of degra- 
dation, or eyen temporary suspension from the seat of power, such as_ it 
would be in the power of the magistrates (if the system of “ licensing” 
were adopted) to inflict, would probably make these artists feel the con~ 
venience of conducting themselves more guardedly. 
There remains but one more point, then, in the carriers of men’s peti- 
tion—the desire that they may be at liberty to apply their “ plates” to 
covered vehicles or cabriolets, as they think fit ; and this is a request, 
we think, so reasonable that some plain and sufficient objection ought to 
be assigned if it is not to be granted to them. If the trade is to be in 
any degree an open one, then the holders of the cabriolets can have no 
right to a monopoly of the employment of that carriage; they have 
enjoyed the advantage already for a considerable period of its prior intro- 
duction. And, if the Commissioners are to use their authority for 
the purpose of determining what quantity and what description of 
accommodation the convenience of the town demands, then their deci- 
sion at present is a most absurd or a most unjust one; because the 
cabriolets are too few for the public demand, and the coaches and 
chariots (as the long ranks that stand for hours in the. streets suffi- 
ciently testify) very greatly too many. Certainly, with a view to 
general convenience, the power of transferring the “ plates” or licences 
here demanded would be desirable: as the mere change of season 
makes a difference in the description of carriage likely to be in request : 
and its refusal to the coach-owners challenges the closer examination, 
because there are persons likely to possess influence—Mr. Bradshaw, the 
banker, for instance,.and “the Hon. Mr. Ponsonby Staples”—among. 
their opponents, the holders of the cabriolets. 
Cobbett, who is always mad four times a year upon some new conun- 
drum, is now rampant on the subject of producing Indian corn in 
England. The following is an account of an experiment made by 
himself in its cultivation. 
“T should think that eight acres had bestowed upon them about twenty 
large cart-loads of tolerably good manure, taking one part with the other, and 
no more. The corn has had two complete and good hand hoeings, and the 
ground is now as clean as a parterre ought to be. The field, as I said before,’ 
is the handsomest Indian corn-field that I ever saw, and I have seen millions 
of acres. Every body knows what sort of a. summer we have had; that we have 
had full six weeks of wet and shady weather, beginning about the sth of 
