The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-19 00:00:00

manage these things better in France:' Inferior to
ours their system of municipal administration may
be, and undoubtedly is, in many particulars; but
it must be acknowledged at the same time with
a strictly Shandean candour that in other respects
they have as unquestionably attained au indubitable
superiority. Traversing the streets and boulevards
of their beautiful Paris, it is impossible not to be im-
pressed with this conviction. Take as an evidence of
this the arrangements enforced by the authorities for
the conveyance of the public to different quarters of
the metropolis. Instead of being hustled into an
omnibus very dirty, remarkably close, and exceed-
ingly restricted in regard to its dimensions, you enter
one spacious, clean, and contrived in all respects with
an attention both to elegance and convenience. You
have no necessity to run the gauntlet of a
lane of knees, to be jolted into the lap of the
most irritable among the whole group of passengers,
and at last to be "shaken down " by the clattering over
the stones into a seat that proves a very tight fit
indeed—an object to the majority of your companions
rather of disgust than of commiseration. On the
contrary, every step and incident of your journey in
tE e omnibuses of the French capital is matter either
of satisfaction or amusement. You cross the door-
way and your entrance is announced by a chime on
the conductor's clockwork. In your passage to the
extremity of the carriage in which you stand erect
the handrail overhead proves no inconsiderable assist-
ance. Crowding, beyond all this, is rendered alto-
gether impossible by the armrests dividing each side
into partitions. Are you going further than the
omnibus you have entered ? A slip of paper passes
you on to another conveyance without any additional
charge whatever.

Equally commendable are the regulations enforced
among our neighbours in reference to the system of
cab-hire. Disagreement with the driver is rendered
impracticable. Within the circumference of the
ramparts each journey is charged at a like fare, a
fare without increase or abatement. For one franc
and twenty-five centimes you can be carried in your
fiacre from one extremity of the city to another, from
the Arc d'Etoile to the Barriere du Trone, from
the Chemin de Fer du Nord to the Chemin
de Fer de Rouen, from the heights of Montmartre
to the gates of the Observatoire. Taken by the hour
a fiacre costs fifty centimes additional, and beyond
the line of fortifications the amount is proportionately
increased according to the arrangements either of
time or distance. Than this surely nothing could
scarcely be more reasonable or satisfactory. Civility
is secured by the inexorable uniformity of the charges
the driver being deprived of even a pretext for at-
tempted imposition and the consequent luxury of em-
ploying a little Parisian slang. Beyond which, the
voitures being classified in one comprehensive system,
cleanliness and respectability on the part
of the employees become somewhat more
attainable than among ourselves. In lieu
of being driven along Regent-street by a cabbie,
dressed in an eccentric costume, between that of an
ostler, a potboy, and a costermonger, with a wisp of
soddened straw round his hat, and a " yard of clay"
reeking in his mouth—you may at any hour be con-
veyed down the Rue Rivoli, or any other of the
fashionable streets of the neighbouring metropolis, in
a fiacre, as neat in construction as a private cabrio •
let, with a coachman in livery, and altogether di-
vested of such appendages as a straw•-wisp or a pipe
of tobacco.

Another custom prevalent in Paris, in reference to
these fiacres, might well be adopted as a serviceable
hint in the cities of London and Westminster.
It is this—whenever a " fare" enters one of these
conveyances he receives from the hands of the driver
a little billet containing his " number," and re-
sembling the subjoined :