and popular garden seats. It was an innovation which met with unqualified approval from the public. To ladies it was a boon which they had never even expected, so accustomed were they to being relegated to the inside of omnibuses. To clamber to the top of the knife-board omnibuses was an impossibility with most of them, and the athletic few who did not find the task an arduous one were rewarded by being considered exceedingly unladylike. In fact, until the London Road Car Company started work, it was an unusual sight to see a female on the top of an omnibus. But now, when the weather is fine, few ladies ride inside if there be room for them on the roof. Truly, the fair sex should be very grateful to the London Road Car Company. Pickpockets, certainly, were deeply indebted to it, for the backs of the garden seats were open, and afforded them special facilities for the exploration of ladies' pockets. After a time this defect was altered.
The popularity of the garden-seat omnibuses did not benefit the London Road Car Company alone, for other companies and proprietors, following its example, built all their new omnibuses with similar seats and staircases. Many of their
