The ruthless taxirobber of New York would not last half an hour
in London; for him the jail doors would yawn.
Oldtime Londoners deplored the coming of the taxicab and the
motorbus, for their coming meant the entire extinction of the
driver of the horse-drawn bus, who was an institution, and the
practical extinction of the hansom cabby, who was a type and very
frequently a humorist too. But an American finds no fault with
the present arrangement; he is amply satisfied with it.
Personally I can think of no more exciting phase of the night life
of the two greatest cities of Europe than the stunt of dodging
taxicabs. In London the peril that lurks for you at every turning
is not the result of carelessness on the part of the drivers; it
is due to the rules of the road. Afoot, an Englishman meeting you
on the sidewalk turns, as we do, to the right hand; but mounted
he turns to the left. The foot passenger's prerogative of turning
to the right was one of the priceless heritages wrested from King
John by the barons at Runnymede; but when William the Conqueror
rode into the Battle of Hastings he rode a left-handed horse--and
so, very naturally and very properly, everything on hoof or wheel
in England has consistently turned to the left ever since. I took
some pains to look up the original precedents for these facts and
to establish them historically.
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