Henry Charles Moore

“ There are, at the present day, many old people who remember and speak with affection of the old hackney-coach. They admit that it was a lumbering thing, and that the horses were generally sorry specimens fully qualified for the knacker’s yard; but they add, emphatically, that no vehicles now plying for hire in the streets of London can compare with it for cosiness and comfort. It was furnished luxuriously, and was as comfortable as a hammock, even when travelling on roads that would shake a modern cab to pieces before it had journeyed half a mile. ”

“ Electric cab. Many of our public vehicles are very badly lighted, but no such complaint could be made against the electric cab. They were, perhaps, a little too brilliantly illuminated for the comfort of people of a bashful disposition, who were worried by the thought that as they rode along they were as conspicuous as if they were on the stage with the limelight turned on them. If a man desired to ride through the streets at night unobserved, he did not hire an electric cab. And it does not follow that because a man wishes to escape notice that he is ashamed of being seen. ”

“ On its way from the finishing point the conductor, lamp in hand, has searched the seats and floor of his omnibus, and found, perhaps, a stray penny. If he discovers a parcel, a purse, or anything of any value, he trudges off with it to the nearest police-station, bearing no grudge against the careless passenger who has made his walk necessary, for he knows that he will be rewarded, no matter whether the article is claimed or not. When the article is not claimed, he receives, eventually, a proportion of its value. ”

“ To be able to travel cheaply and quickly was a pleasing novelty to Londoners, but many of them lived to regret having trusted themselves in a cab, for the drivers, proud of being able to pass hackney and private coaches, were fond of showing the superior speed, and while doing so frequently ran against street posts or collided with other vehicles; and when either of these things happened, or the horse fell, the "fare" was usually pitched forward into the road. This danger, coupled with the difficulty of climbing into a cab, prevented old men and women from patronising the new vehicle. ”

“ It is true that the vehicle has its merits, if variety of uses can establish them. The hackney-coach conveys alike the living and the dead. It carries the dying man to the hospital, and when doctors and tax-gatherers can tantalize no more, it carries him to Surgeons' Hall and qualifies him to assist the 'march of mind' by the section of body. If the midnight thief finds his plunder too ponderous for his hands, the hackney-coach offers its services, and is one of the most expert conveyances. ”

“ But the taxameter is far too useful an innovation to be suppressed at the word of the Cab-drivers' Union. The public must remember that the taxameter gives them the protection for which they have been sighing for years, and that if they are determined to enjoy its benefits the Cab-drivers' Union is powerless to prevent the boon. It may order a strike, but the spectacle of men refusing to work because they are not allowed to overcharge their customers will be more novel than edifying. ”

“ Cabs are all very well in cases of expedition, when it’s a matter of neck or nothing, life or death, your temporary home or your long one. But, besides a cab’s lacking that gravity of deportment which so peculiarly distinguishes a hackney-coach, let it never be forgotten that a cab is a thing of yesterday, and that he was never anything better. ”

“ After a frost or a slight fall of rain, asphalted Victoria Street and Tottenham-court Road, innocent of sand until many poor horses have slipped and fallen and struggled and strained to rise again, are a saddening sight to horse-lovers. ”

“ Some men remained loyal to their employers, but their efforts to take out their omnibuses were frustrated by the angry mobs of strikers gathered around the stable gates. Day after day the strike dragged on, and for a week the London streets looked quite unfamiliar—devoid of the omnibuses which lend so much life to them. Pirates, of course, did not cease work, but they were comparatively few in number, and were scarcely noticed. Every day the pirates contributed to the strike fund, conscious that the longer the strike lasted, the more profitable it would be for them. ”

“ Women can travel in London by train, tram, omnibus and boat without fear of extortion and incivility, but they know from bitter experience, that every time they hire a cab they are running a risk of being cheated and afterwards abused for daring to utter a protest. Women, therefore were naturally very pleased when they heard of the new check, but their joy was short-lived, for the Cab-drivers' Union interfered, and declared that any man who drove a taxameter cab was a "black-leg." ”

“ Lord John Russell was in the habit of riding home every night from the House of Commons in a cab. The distance was short, and the cabmen all knew that he paid a shilling for his ride. But one night a cabman, well known as "Palace Yard Jack," was surprised to find that Lord John had placed a sovereign in his hand instead of a shilling. He saw that the statesman had made a mistake but having had a spell of bad luck, and being in great need of a new pair of boots, he did not call his lordship's attention to the coin. ”

“ On another occasion a sane-looking man, sitting on top of an omnibus, suddenly started throwing pennies at the silk hats of passers-by and spitting contemptuously at female pedestrians. Before his fellow-passengers had made up their minds whether to pitch him off the omnibus or give him into custody, he walked quietly down the steps and alighted.
Many passengers leave strange things in omnibuses, but I have heard of only one man who went away without his clothes. A conductor looking round his omnibus at the end of his day's work, kicked against a heap of clothes lying on the roof. ”

“ When an omnibus is no longer fit for London work it is sold at auction, and becomes, eventually, a summer-house, a workmen's shed, a cricket club's dressing-room or refreshment bar. The London General Omnibus Company burns its old vehicles. ”

“ A passenger, riding on top of the omnibus, no sooner discovered the meaning of the angry shouts, than he pulled the flagstaff from its socket, and waved aloft the little Union Jack. Loud cheers greeted his action, and the pro-Boer orators were taught speedily that Londoners had a healthy objection to their foolish, un-English ravings. ”

“ The man in evening dress who enters the omnibus in the Strand after the theatres have closed may be one; so too, may be the man with a bag of workman's tools who rides up to town by the first omnibus. The daintily dressed young lady who enters at Peter Robinson's or William Whiteley's may, from her seat in the corner, be regarding the conductor with an interest which is not born of admiration, and the palpably retired officer who gets in at Piccadilly may be earning a welcome addition to his income by watching 'busmen's manœuvres. ”

“ We have the rest of the evening to ourselves."
But it must be admitted that omnibus drivers have the knack of delivering their remarks in a way that makes a stranger imagine that they are uttering them for the first time. And that is an art.
At Christmas time there is a great demand among 'busmen for Rothschild's racing colours. The drivers attach them to their whips and the conductors adorn their bell-pulls with them, as a slight acknowledgment of the welcome Christmas-box—a brace of pheasants—which they have received for many years from the firm of Rothschild. ”

“ At times the eccentricity of some passengers takes very objectionable forms. Quite recently a well-dressed little woman jumped into an omnibus in Fleet Street, pulled a man out of his seat and sat in it herself, poked her umbrella into another man’s eye, swore horribly at everybody present for about half a minute, then suddenly got up, jumped out without paying, and disappeared down a side street. The man whose eye was injured had to hurry to Charing Cross Hospital. ”

“ It is a great pity that the local authorities do not have the name Regent Circus, which is still displayed at Oxford Circus, removed, for it affords the pirate-omnibus men an excuse for painting on their vehicles a destination which is misleading. The Oxford Street shopkeepers should, in the interests of their customers, see to this, and, remembering that the police stated in court a few years ago that one, at least, of the pirate omnibuses which frequented Oxford Circus was worked in collusion with pickpockets, insist upon a closer watch being kept on the pests. ”

“ They imagine that the Union Jack is a sign that the omnibuses are State-subsidised vehicles, and, to avoid falling into the hands of the dreaded pirates—for the London pirates’ notoriety has reached the chief Continental cities—they will ride in no omnibus which does not carry a flag. Sometimes they stand for a long while looking for an omnibus with the Union Jack flying, to discover, eventually, that there are no Road Car omnibuses on that route. ”

“ It was an innovation which met with unqualified approval from the public. To ladies it was a boon which they had never even expected, so accustomed were they to being relegated to the inside of omnibuses. To clamber to the top of the knife-board omnibuses was an impossibility with most of them, and the athletic few who did not find the task an arduous one were rewarded by being considered exceedingly unladylike. In fact, until the London Road Car Company started work, it was an unusual sight to see a female on the top of an omnibus. ”

“ Every innovation for the public good ruins a few people who prospered under the old order of things, and the building of Holborn Viaduct was no exception to the rule. A number of men had for years made a living by putting the skids on vehicles before they started down the hill, and one of them, who was largely patronised by omnibus men, earned every day between twelve and fifteen shillings. ”

“ The dissipated down-at-heel gentleman, of the type which sometimes drives a cab, never becomes an omnibus conductor, for the very good reason that no company or proprietor would employ him. But the unfortunate gentleman often does. An Oxford graduate was the conductor of a West-End omnibus for some considerable time, and a man who was once the secretary of a flourishing literary society, and a church organist, is and has been one for some years. ”