BACK FARES.
A frEw cab question is mooted this week—that of back fares. After eight o'clock, the whole class of suburban travellers is ex- posed to that vexatious trap. You shall take a cab from Ham- mersmith to Kensington, and be charged "back fare" onwards to Sloane Street ! The other day, a barrister rode from Oxford Street to Cambridge Square, offered a shilling, and was asked for four- pence more as "back fare " : he put his servant into the cab, sent him to the Edgeware Road, and there let him pay eightpenee as the full fare legally earned. But all cab-riders are not barristers, nor are all eases so clear. The Metropolis has outgrown the hackney-carriage district, and the back fare always rested on a false principle. The right reform would be, to extend. the Metropolitan circle' say to the whole Me- tropolitan Post-office delivery ; to abolish back fares altogether, but to relieve the hackney-carriage driver from any compulsion to go beyond the boundary ; letting all excursions past the frontier be voluntary on his part, and probably the subject of special bargain. This would settle the whole difficulty in a very simple way.
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