That resulted in the establishment of a committee of high executive officials for the testing of every motor omnibus in respect of noise before it is licensed.
Pass through Great Derby Street into New Scotland Yard any day after ten o'clock, and you will find always a number of men clustered about a low building and in the little square. They are drawn from all types and classes, and all are candidates hopeful of obtaining their licences.
A would-be taxi-driver—an "original" he is technically termed—has to be clean in dress and person and not under five feet in height. Two householders who have known him personally for three years must give him a good character. A doctor is required to certify that he does not suffer from any ailment, that he is sufficiently active, that he does not smoke or drink excessively, and that he is fitted for his duties by temperament. After this he will be permitted to undergo examinations in fitness and knowledge of driving. It is a tight-meshed net through which an incompetent would find it hard to pass.
But it is the topographical examination that undoes most of the "originals." I went through a couple of large waiting-rooms; hanging on the walls of one was a slip of paper with the name of one man. "There were twelve yesterday," said my guide; "he was the only one to get through."
And then he told me something of the history of the man whose name was hanging solitary on the wall. It was not an altogether unusual one in that building. The candidate, a University man, had been in possession of an income of about £1,500 a year. He had been neither reckless nor extravagant, but suddenly, at the age of forty, with no trade or profession in his hands, he had seen his fortune lost. So he had taken his place among the "originals" and had started in the world anew as the driver of a taxicab.
At the end of the waiting-room there are two little apartments, each containing one table and a chair; there the "originals" are examined in topography, viva voce, one at a time. Now, it is sometimes asserted that trick questions are put to candidates. That is not so. There are twenty-five lists officially laid down, each of eighteen questions, and one of these lists the candidate has to answer.
Here are typical routes which a candidate has to describe:—
St. James's Park Railway Station to Baker Street Railway Station,
Clapham Junction to Brixton Theatre,
Hop Exchange to Royal Exchange.
The names are sometimes varied. For instance, the second might be "from the South-Western Police Court to Lambeth Town Hall," or the third "London Bridge Station to the Mansion House." But in each case the route is practically the same. Thus a complaint of unfairness can be checked by reference to the record kept by the examiner of the list he used.