North America — Volume 1 by Anthony Trollope
page 277 of 440 (62%)
page 277 of 440 (62%)
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guide. In London, the Tower, Westminster Abbey, and Madame Tussaud
are found by the stranger without difficulty, and almost without a thought, because the cab-driver knows the whereabouts and the way. Space is moreover annihilated, and the huge distances of the English metropolis are brought within the scope of mortal power. But in New York there is no such institution. In New York there are street omnibuses as we have--there are street cars such as last year we declined to have, and there are very excellent public carriages; but none of these give you the accommodation of a cab, nor can all of them combined do so. The omnibuses, though clean and excellent, were to me very unintelligible. They have no conductor to them. To know their different lines and usages a man should have made a scientific study of the city. To those going up and down Broadway I became accustomed, but in them I was never quite at my ease. The money has to be paid through a little hole behind the driver's back, and should, as I learned at last, be paid immediately on entrance. But in getting up to do this I always stumbled about, and it would happen that when with considerable difficulty I had settled my own account, two or three ladies would enter, and would hand me, without a word, some coins with which I had no life-long familiarity, in order that I might go through the same ceremony on their account. The change I would usually drop into the straw, and then there would arise trouble and unhappiness. Before I became aware of that law as to instant payment, bells used to be rung at me, which made me uneasy. I knew I was not behaving as a citizen should behave, but could not compass the exact points of my delinquency. And then, when I desired to escape, the door being strapped up tight, I would halloo vainly at the driver through the |
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