Page:Omnibuses and Cabs.djvu/140

 robbed of its horses and pole. The driver had a covered seat low down in the front. The body of the vehicle was painted white, and the lower and storage part blue. While the omnibus was travelling no great fault could be found with it, but its warmest admirers could not say truthfully that when it stopped the sensation was pleasant. It vibrated abominably, and when I had my first ride on it, I echoed inwardly the hope expressed by a fellow-passenger that there was no bilious person present.

In the spring of 1900 the motor omnibus was running from Kennington to Oxford Circus, but, towards the end of the year, it disappeared from the London streets.

Some months before the Motor Traction Company's omnibus was placed on the roads an electric 'bus, belonging to a company which was bring floated, ran, on many afternoons, from Marble Arch to Notting-hill Gate. It was not licensed, and therefore all rides were free. This omnibus carried no outside passengers, an omission which would have doomed it to failure had it entered into competition with other omnibuses.

The proprietors of horse-drawn omnibuses have