We are really the most patient people in the world, especially as regards
any incorporated, non-political oppressions. A lively Gaul, who travelled
among us some thirty years ago, found that, in the absence of political
control, we gratified the human instinct of obedience by submitting to
small tyrannies unknown abroad, and were subject to the steamboat-captain,
the hotel-clerk, the stage-driver, and the waiter, who all bullied us
fearlessly; but though some vestiges of this bondage remain, it is
probably passing away. The abusive Frenchman's assertion would not at
least hold good concerning the horse-car conductors, who, in spite of a
lingering preference for touching or punching passengers for their fare
instead of asking for it, are commonly mild-mannered and good-tempered,
and disposed to molest us as little as possible. I have even received from
one of them a mark of such kindly familiarity as the offer of a check
which he held between his lips, and thrust out his face to give me, both
his hands being otherwise occupied; and their lives are in nowise such
luxurious careers as we should expect in public despots. The oppression of
the horse-car passenger is not from them, and the passenger himself is
finally to blame for it. When the draw closes at last, and we rumble
forward into the city street, a certain stir of expectation is felt among
us. The long and eventful journey is nearly ended, and now we who are to
get out of the cars can philosophically amuse ourselves with the passions
and sufferings of those who are to return in our places. You must choose
the time between five and six o'clock in the afternoon, if you would make
this grand study of the national character in its perfection. Then the
spectacle offered in any arriving horse-car will serve your purpose. At
nearly every corner of the street up which it climbs stands an experienced
suburban, who darts out upon the car, and seizes a vacant place in it.
Presently all the places are taken, and before we reach Temple Street,
where helpless groups of women are gathered to avail themselves of the
first seats vacated, an alert citizen is stationed before each passenger