Cycles, Motor- vehicles and Tubes 485 



chapels, and duly dedicated to their special purpose. Finally, 

 after having had, through life, the advantage of all the 

 numerous and varied motor services here mentioned, one may 

 now be conveyed to one's last resting-place in what a writer 

 in "Motor Traction" for June 24, 1911, describes as "a 

 properly-equipped motor hearse." 



So considerable is the expansion which the use of com- 

 mercial motors has undergone, and so great and varied are 

 the interests represented, that there is now a Commercial 

 Motor Users' Association which, among other purposes, seeks 

 to resist the placing of undue restrictions on users, and to 

 extend their rights and privileges. The administration of the 

 Association is vested in an executive committee (on which the 

 principal industries using self-propelled vehicles for industrial 

 purposes are represented) and various sub-committees. 



Of the motor-omnibus as a competitor with the electric 

 tramway I have spoken in the previous chapter. It is a no less 

 serious competitor with the horse omnibus which in London, 

 at least, if not in other cities as well, it is rapidly driving off 

 the streets altogether. The position in London is suggested 

 by the following figures, which give the numbers of horse- 

 omnibuses and motor-omnibuses licensed in the years stated : 



YEAR. HORSE. MOTOR. YEAR. HORSE. MOTOR. 



1902 3736 10 1907 2964 783 



1903 3667 29 1908 2557 1205 



1904 3623 13 1909 2155 1133 



J 905 355 1 3i 1910 1771 "80 

 1906 3484 241 191 i 1 863 1665 



On October 25, 1911, the London General Omnibus Com- 

 pany, who at one time had 17,800 horses, ran their last horse- 

 omnibuses, these being then definitely withdrawn by them 

 in favour of motor-omnibuses. 



A like story is to be told of the rapid substitution of motor- 

 cabs, popularly known as " taxis," for the horse-cabs which, 

 succeeding the earlier hackney coaches, had helped to render 

 so disconsolate the formerly important and influential, 

 though now utterly vanished, body known as " Thames 

 watermen." * Once more, in fact, the supplanters are being 



1 July 31. 19". z See pp. 58-63. 



