of the Town of Southampton. 599 



the directors of railroads, who have already done so much for 

 the comfort of the public, ought not to grudge the additional 

 charge which such an officer as the one we contemplate would 

 involve. 



Perhaps, in the interior of towns, a number of the more 

 respectable shopkeepers might be found willing to undertake 

 the office of settling cab and hackney fares ; and of course no 

 cab, or other public vehicle plying for hire, ought to be licensed, 

 whose proprietor would not assent to this arrangement. 



The names of the shopkeepers who would undertake to settle 

 fares, the fares themselves, and all other regulations concerning 

 them, ought to be printed in a distinct type, and fixed up in a 

 conspicuous place in every public vehicle, as in Paris. As a 

 proof that this would be useful in Southampton, we may state 

 that, when we were there, we were charged 2s. 6d. from the 

 terminus to the pier on one occasion, though the fixed fare, as 

 we learned afterwards, is only Is. ; and on another occasion we 

 also paid 2s. 6d. where the fixed fare was 1^. The circum- 

 stance of the fares being fixed was of no use to us, because we 

 had no opportunity of knowing them till after we had yielded 

 to the imposition; whereas, had the fares been printed and 

 fixed up in the vehicle, as in Paris, we or any other stranger 

 would have been immediately aware of the right sum we ought 

 to have paid. 



The shops, owing to the warm moist air of Southampton, are 

 infested with flies to an almost incredible degree ; but, as most 

 of these shops are without cross lights, the flies might be easily 

 prevented from entering them by the very simple, economical, 

 and efficient mode adopted in the butchers' shops in Italy, and 

 first brought into notice in this country by William Spence, Esq., 

 being published in the Trans. Ent. Soc, and also in our Vol. for 

 1836, p. 264., and 3faff. Nat. Hist., 1834, p. 271. This mode 

 consists in the application, against the open door or open window, 

 of a very wide-meshed black net; and we observed, in the 

 summer of 1842, that the plan has been adopted by the butchers 

 of Torquay, with perfect success. In Southampton it is much 

 wanted, not only in the butchers' shops, but in grocers', confec- 

 tioners', and fruit shops. The inhabitants, however, have not 

 a sufficient repugnance to flies, beetles (which are singularly 

 abundant, at least in Bernard Street), and other vermin, with the 

 exception of the rat and the mouse, to care much about them. 



The Vineyard, C. Hoare, Esq., at Shirley, about two miles 

 from Southampton, is a very interesting place, from the ex- 

 periments on vines now carrying on there by the proj)rietor. 

 The house is a gem of beauty, by Mr. Elliott of Chichester. 

 The principle of the concentration of the sap is carried by Mr. 

 Hoare to an extreme degree ; and it will not be surprising to us 



