MODERN CARRIAGES. 365 



ideas on many subjects, grasped the idea before anyone else, 

 that a refined and glorified street cab would make a convenient 

 carriage for a gentleman, and specially for a man of such ideas 

 of independence as one who carried his own carpet-bag on 

 occasions when time was important and his own servant other- 

 wise employed. 



The Chancellor called on his coachmakers, Messrs. Sharp & 

 Bland, of South Audley Street, and proposed to them that they 

 should build a small close carriage, like the street cabs that 

 carried two persons inside, and had just been introduced in 

 London. They were evidently not the men to carry out a new 

 idea that was destined to overspread the world, wherever good 

 carriages are now used. They were in the habit of building 

 family coaches, landaus, barouches, britzskas, and chariots, 

 which function carried with it certain ideas of rank, ceremony, 

 dignity, independence, and we may add prejudice. They threw 1 

 so many difficulties in the way, that it was hopeless to get them 

 to carry out the work satisfactorily, so his lordship called on 

 some neighbours of theirs in Mount Street. Messrs7 Robinson & 

 Cook had not been so thoroughly trained in the school of crystal- 

 lised habit, obstruction, and prejudice as their neighbours ; 

 they accordingly accepted the idea, and the order for construc- 

 tion, with alacrity, civility, and energy. 



They did their best ; they pleased their customer ; he was 

 delighted with the result, and in his turn he did his best to 

 influence the world of fashion. He began with his personal 

 friends, advising them to order carriages like his new one, and 

 he so influenced the carriage -buy ing public that they flocked 

 to the coachmakers who had worked out successfully the 

 idea which was destined to revolutionise the old method of 

 carriage-building as regards lightness, handiness, ease of access, 

 and economy. 



Shillibeer introduced omnibuses about the same time ; they 

 ran for some years from Paddington to the Bank of England 

 and back, and for a long period the owners did not seem to 

 realise the fact that riders required to go in any other direction; 



