A CABMAN'S PROTEST AGAINST THE HINJUSTICE OF THE HACT.
Vy, here's a pretty time o 'day! a precious hact indeed!
I'm blest if, since I tuk the vip, the like I ever seed.
The ould hacts they vos dreadful bad, and cut us all to bits;
For justice from just-asses a poor Cabman never gits:
Though he may do the thing vot's fair, the fare the thing vot's shabby,
It's all the same; the ugly beak is allus down on Cabby.
But look at this 'ere hact: my eye! there's fine and pris'n, too!
I vonder vot the Parleyment is going next to do.
Just s'pose a fare should leave a purse or pocket-book behind,
And s'pose, ven I gits to my stand, the book or purse I find;
It isn't mine, it's werry true, but I don't know it's his'n;
And there comes claws eleven, and claws a 'onest man to pris'n!
Then see the "rates" in Sheddle A, vy vot a shame it is
To drag two fat uns near a mile, and only git a tiz!
Now s'pose a twelve-stun fare comes up and takes me off the rank,
And makes me drive him, pretty sharp, from Smiffield to the Bank;
I civ'lly axes eighteenpence, and cheap, too, for the job—
He sticks into me claws seventeen, and fines me forty bob!
Ve're chaffed and jeered by every cove, by slaveys on a bus;
Our werry watermen are now our masters top of us.
A po-lice chap may poke his dirty mug into my cab,
And, if he says it isn't clean, my license he may grab;
And arterwards, if I but "use" my own cab, I must pay,
Says claws the third, a penalty of sixty bob a day!!!
Vy, haven't Cabmen feelings? Then vot right 'ave you to gash em?
They aren't 'osses, vich, we know, all likes us for to lash em.
If we are druv about all day from this to t'other station,
Our fares screw'd down to sich a pint as 's werry near starwation,
Our parson'l liberty consarned, and bilked of all our priggings,
I'm blowed if I don't drop the reins and bolt off to the diggings.