Omnibuses and cabs

by Henry Charles Moore

A somewhat rackety young peer proved, for a wager, how easy it was to “bilk” a cabman. He hailed a cab outside his club and told the cabby to drive him to a certain address at Hammersmith. Just before he arrived at his destination he got out unobserved, and from a distance watched cabby’s surprise and wrath on discovering his vehicle to be empty. After a time the cabman started back for town, and the youthful lord, seizing his opportunity, re-entered the cab, and shouted almost immediately, in well-assumed anger, “Hi, you rascal! Where are you driving me? I told you to take me to Hammersmith.” The cabman, speechless with astonishment, turned round and made for Hammersmith once more, only however to discover on arriving there, that his “fare” had disappeared again. He became convinced that his cab was haunted, and this belief was strengthened, as he drove back through Kensington by discovering suddenly that his fare was sitting calmly in his vehicle as if nothing had happened. Cabby did not utter a word, for he was too frightened to address his “fare,” but drove to the club, where he had picked him up, as quickly as possible. There the young peer alighted, and, without the slightest explanation, paid the cabman five times his fare.

CHAPTER III

Hansom invents a cab—Chapman designs and patents the present hansom—Francis Moore’s vehicles—The Hansom patent infringed—Litigation a failure—Pirate cabs called “shofuls”—The “Clarence” or four-wheeler introduced—An unpleasant fare—The decoration of cabs—Cabmen compelled to wear badges—The “Tribus”—The “Curricle Tribus”—The “Quartobus.”

The prevalence of “bilking” made the back-door cab such an unprofitable vehicle that a new style of cab became imperative.

THE FIRST HANSOM.

At the close of 1834, Mr. Joseph Aloysius Hansom, the architect of the old Birmingham Town Hall and founder of The Builder, patented a cab designed by himself. The body of this vehicle was almost square and hung in the centre of a square frame. The frame enclosed the whole of the body, passing over and under it. The driver sat on a small seat on the top at the front. The doors were also at the front, one on each side of the cabby’s feet. The wheels were seven feet six inches in height—a trifle taller than the vehicle itself—and were attached to the sides of the frame by a pair of short axles. This extraordinary vehicle Mr. Hansom himself drove from Hinckley in Leicestershire to London, much to the wonder of the inhabitants of the various towns and villages through which he passed, and to the amusement of the stage-coach drivers and waggoners whom he met on the road. Mr. Hansom, who was financed by Mr. William Boulnois, the inventor of the back-door cab, also registered another cab, the body of which resembled the one just mentioned in every respect, except that the doors were at the sides, and passengers had to enter the vehicle through the wheels, which were without felloes, naves, and spokes, the rotary action being produced by a somewhat complicated arrangement of zones and friction rollers. This cab never plied for hire in the streets, but the first-mentioned one, after the wheels had been reduced considerably in size, and one or two minor alterations made, was thought so highly of that a company was formed to purchase Mr. Hansom’s rights for £10,000. An old print of this cab represents the passenger exclaiming:—

“The sweet little cherub that sits up aloft

Takes care of the fate of poor Jack.”

Not a penny of the £10,000 was, however, paid to Hansom, for it was found, as soon as the cabs were placed on the streets, that they were far from being perfect.