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Omnibuses and Cabs

a pirate. Their caution against that particular omnibus brought forth a large number of warnings against other pirates, and the nefarious practices of the objectionable vehicles being proved beyond all doubt, the Government passed a second Omnibus Bill, compelling drivers and conductors to be licensed. But legislation did not succeed in checking to any great extent the fraudulent doings of the pirates.

The first real check they received came, a few years later, from the proprietors of respectably-conducted omnibuses, whose vehicles were imitated just as Shillibeer's had been. These proprietors were now in a position to assert themselves, having just formed themselves into Associations. The associated proprietors started a crusade against pirates, and subjected them daily to a rigorous course of "nursing," which is not such a harmless performance as it sounds, consisting as it does of two omnibuses working together to prevent a third from making a profitable journey. One of the Association's omnibuses would keep just in front of the pirate, and the other close behind it, with the result that, there being three omnibuses where one would have been sufficient, none