The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-27 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 1853.

A climax has been put this day to that most
intolerable and detestable of all the petty social
evils endured by the Londoner—the Cab Nui-
sance. It now remains for us to witness some
really stringent interference on the part of her
MAJESTY'S Government. Direct interposition has
at length become imperatively requisite—for the
public patience has at last, we are bold to assert,
been entirely exhausted. Hitherto, our long-suf-
fering has been something, more than exemplary.
It has rendered us ridiculous at least, if not ab-
solutely contemptible, in the eyes of our neigh-
bours, the Parisians. We appeal to the common
sense of any one who has ever enjoyed an excur-
sion to the metropolis of our Gallic contemporaries.
We ask any sane man who has ever visited that
beautiful and orderly city of Paris where Jehus are
not necessarily, besides being hackdrivers, purveyors
of insolence and organised batteners on extortion !
We put it to,any rational member of society, who
may have rejoiced in.:the delight of a trip from
London to.-Paris, whether the contrast presented
between the two capita s in reference to the
management of the public vehicles plying through
the streets at all hours for the convenience of the
Population, has not appeared to them to reflect
the utmost dis.grace upon ourselves, while it re-
dounds to the credit at once of the propriety, the
• honesty, and the decency of our somewhat more
civilised friends across the Channel. We are not
hair-splitting in thus marking out with exacti-
tude the balance of this really melancholy com-
parison. The truth is altogether in this matter
notorious. Everybody can testify as much
who has ever strolled under the urban umbrage
of the Boulevards. Here again, as in so many
other directions, do we find reason to repeat with
a "damnable iteration," the hackneyed admission
of Parson STZRNE, that they manage these things
better in France. Better ! Why, in simple
candour, it must be allowed that between the cab
and the fiacre there is absolutely no room what-
ever for comparisop.

A cab in London has hitherto been, in the vast
majority of instances, nothing more nor less than
ricketty tub upon wheels, with cracked window_ a
panes and threadbare cushions; sometimes not
wholly innocent of the depredations of vermin,
for . the privilege of riding .in which at the tail
of a miserable specimen of horseflesh (literally,
fast going to the dogs) you had either
to pay exorbitantly, or to submit to the abuse of
a driver powerful in the choicest vocabulary of
Billingsgate. ' A pleasant alternative ! You had
to put up with a coachman often in liquor, and
ahnost always out at elbows. You had to 101 l
upon seats redolent of stables and tobacco—occa-
sionally losing a train while Master JEHu
to as
h7iving a friend a "lift," very convenient
ta, no doubt, but rather the reverse
stouycoKu,rsoelff,se ethat it necessitated what Mr.
Slickville, would call a " tarnation
circumbendibus." All these delectable concomi-
tants you had to tolerate if you ventured upon
calling one of those tumble
_down conveyances--
drawn by a " galled jade,"redeemed from the
hands of the knacker, driven b
somewhat beery,
licentiate in the College of Insolence, a
com-
posed, for the most part (each of these and
vehicles), of old leather, old board, delightful
and old
cloth, in a rapid state of irredeemable d
ec"Vesi-