Page:Omnibuses and Cabs.djvu/104

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Omnibuses and Cabs

from a design which combined the best suggestions of several competitors.

In 1857 further improvements were made in the construction of omnibuses, the most important being the placing of five more seats on the roof, thereby making accommodation for fourteen outside passengers. These seats were placed on the near side, and made the "knife-board" omnibus, which has now almost entirely disappeared from London streets, but may be found passing the eventide of its existence in sleepy country towns and populous watering-places.

Before the London General Omnibus Company was a year old it introduced the system of "correspondence," which in Paris had proved profitable to the proprietors and convenient to the public. It was the Company's idea that a passenger might be able to travel from any part of London to another for sixpence. The passenger would get into the omnibus starting from the neighbourhood in which he resided and ride in it until another of the Company's omnibuses, going in the direction he wished to travel, crossed the road, when he would change into it. By that arrangement people were able to ride from Bow to