FREEDOM! EQUALITY! hark, they're yelling; The peaceful burgher seeks defence The streets, the halls, with men are swelling, And rabble knots are crowding dense. The women, like hyenas savage, With ribald jests are seen to dart, To swing above the earth-by labour It shall a voice to God be raising Now by cords and mighty gearing, 73 OMNIBUSES; THEIR INJURIOUS EFFECTS UPON THE PUBLIC HEALTH. BY WILLIAM GIBBONS, M. D. No person who values a sound state of body would ever travel in the present Omnibuses, if it were generally known how absolutely destructive are these public conveyances to the health of every one who frequents them. It is our intention to demonstrate some of the leading objections to these carriages as fit and proper public conveyances, and to accomplish this the reader's attention must first be directed to the construction of the carriage, which indeed may be said to comprise the chief source of all the other objections. What we first perceive upon a mere glance at the build of these vehicles is, that the coachmaker has shown a most wary regard to certain principles which are now so universally acted upon by makers of every thing who are themselves personally interested in a quick and ready disposal of all they make, viz. a niggardly economy of material and a most sparing expenditure of labour. In no one manufactured thing produced from any factory in the kingdom, is the abuse of this disgraceful practice so conspicuously seen as in the build of Omnibuses; the whole ingenuity of the builder being directed to cheapen the production of this destructive engine of human health. The body of the carriage, be it observed, is nothing more than a strong carpentry of plain sided boards, hammered together in the form of a long box, with a lid or door at one end, the seats consisting of two strait planks of wood, stretching from one end to the other on each side, fixed and supported with blocks of wood or iron rests. The top and bottom of the box scarcely differ from each other, except in one particular, which consists, for the most part, in the ceiling being slightly arched to give room for the more convenient packing of hats and bonnets, which inevitably would share the same fate which their wearers are doomed to, and in much quicker time, if this precaution were not adopted. A four-sided long box then describes the body of the vehicle, and if it be added that it is angular at each corner, with neither a curve nor a cushion to disguise the bare planks, with the exception of the seats, which together with about a third of the inside of the box are covered with a fabric of silk and cotton; and if, in addition to this, the windows are enumerated, consisting of five or six on each side, so contrived that if they are closed in a shower of rain they must remain so during the sunshine, and if opened during the sunshine they must remain so during the rain; the description as far as regards the shape and fittings of the body of the carriage, will be found complete. The weight of this huge box, which must be large enough to contain twelve persons, is very great, and requires therefore proportionably strong springs, which, to suit the purpose, are made just sufficiently flexible and no more, to yield slightly to the vibrations of the great box above during locomotion, thereby preserving it from the inevitable smashing which so ponderous a body, moving quickly over the rough surface of paved streets and roads, would otherwise encounter. The construction and mechanism of these springs it is necessary to examine with rather more exactness, as they are the agents of all the mischief which it is our especial purpose to expose. It has been already observed, that the springs of Omnibuses are sufficiently flexible to secure the body of the carriage from the consequences of sudden jars, produced by the irregularities in the road over which they travel; but, let it be understood, that these springs merely serve this purpose, they contribute in no degree to the ease and comfort of the passengers- in fact, they produce a contrary effect; fixed in the centre as are these thick and barely elastic beams of steel, they are absolutely inflexible to every other lesser weight put upon them than that of the body of the carriage, which they are expressly forged to support, and rarely do they bow or bend in the least degree to the weight above, unless called into action by the sudden concussions given to the vehicle when moving rapidly over the stones. Any person may be satisfied of the truth of this if he will take the trouble to examine the hang of an Omnibus when full and in motion, and mark the same when it is empty and at rest. It will be observed, when an Omnibus is quite empty and at rest, that the springs (of which there are generally four or six in number) are either quite straight or slightly bent upwards at each end: this fixed position of the springs is in no way altered, nor is it sensibly affected by any increased weight imposed upon the springs by the addition of four, eight, or twelve persons within the strong box above them; the moment the carriage moves then an abrupt jerking motion of the springs takes place, and this is more or less violent in proportion to the velocity of the movement, and the unevenness of the road: this jerking motion is no doubt conservative to the timbers of the body of the carriage, but by no means is it so to the less tough timbers of the people within. Each rebound of the springs to their former fixed points is but another shock superadded to those already given by the wheels, and though this in some degree prevents the wear and tear of the Omnibus, it is most injurious to all who travel in it. The manner in which this acts prejudiciously upon the health may be shortly explained, without entering at length into a dissertation upon animal mechanics. The muscles of the body, though by no means slow to accommodate themselves to every variety of attitude in which the human frame may be thrown, can in no way become subservient, by an instantaneous self-adjustment of their mechanism, to an irregular ever-shifting jerking motion, such as the living machine is exposed to when travelling in these conveyances. The bad effects of this may be easily understood: a very imperfect attempt is made on the part of the muscular apparatus to correct the disturbed balance of the antagonist muscular contractile forces, and hence a very unequal and spasmodic action of the muscles is produced. This violent effort on the part of the muscular apparatus is set up by nature, provisionally, to compensate for the disturbing force communicated by the jerks or concussions to the frame, and by the unsettling motion of the vehicle; and though it is partially successful only in this respect, it is nevertheless the salvation of the living machine for the time being, for, without fear of contradiction, it may be asserted, that were it not for the protection which this self-regulating muscular power affords to the more delicate and susceptible vital organs within the body, such as the heart, the lungs, the liver, and more especially the spinal marrow, as well as the entire nervous system, the rapid and sustained succession of concussions given by the violent motion of these carriages would in a few seconds destroy life. Now it will easily be conceived, from a moment's reflection, how the weak and infirm of body, how persons of delicate muscular fibre, or those whom a predisposition to functional disorder of any of the internal organs has rendered susceptible to such a cause of disturbance; how many incipient diseases may be established, and how many disordered conditions of body merely may be converted into disease itself, by the habitual and daily exposure of persons of every degree of susceptibility and of temperament to this ex |