Omnibuses and cabs

by Henry Charles Moore

Londoners were heartily glad when the strike was at an end; not because they had suffered very much inconvenience from it, but out of sympathy for the women and children, for strike pay is not magnificent. Nevertheless, over a thousand men were thankful to receive it for many weeks after the strike was concluded. These were men who found themselves out of work through cab proprietors having sold off their stock and retired from business in disgust. The balance-sheet of the Cab-drivers’ Union dealing with the strike showed that £8202 was received, and £8111 spent from the beginning of the strike until July 28.

The next strike began in September, 1896, and aimed at compelling the Railway Companies to allow all cabs the privilege of entering their termini to pick up fares. The drivers refused to work for any proprietor who had privileged cabs, and pressure was put upon the drivers of the latter vehicles to cease work until the Railways agreed to the Union’s demands. The number that did so, however, was comparatively small. Then the strikers made the great mistake of trying to get the public on their side by inconveniencing it. They refused to take people into any terminus in which they were not allowed to pick up fares, but put them down, luggage and all, outside the premises. But, to their surprise, they found that their fares refused to pay unless they were taken right into the station. So that plan was discarded very quickly. The strike dragged on for many weeks, but the average Londoner only knew that it existed by seeing Union mottoes adorning the cabmen’s whips. Eventually it died peacefully of sheer weakness.

The year of this futile strike saw the passing of an Act which was badly needed. Although “bilking” has never been so common as it was in the days of back-door cabs, there has always been a number of well-dressed rascals who make a point of swindling cabmen. Usually they alight at some big shop or institution, telling the cab-driver that they will be out again in a few minutes and will want to be taken farther; then they enter the building and pass out by another door into a different street, leaving the cabman to discover that he has been “bilked.” The “Bilking Act,” as cabmen call the Act of 1896, made any person who hired a cab knowing that he could not pay the legal fare, or intending to avoid payment of it, liable to a fine of 40s., in addition to the fare, or to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding fourteen days. The whole or part of the fine could be given to the cabman as compensation.

CHAPTER VI

Gentlemen cabmen—An applicant’s nerve—The doctor-cabby—John Cockram—A drunken cabman’s horse.

Cab proprietors receive applications for work from all classes of men. One morning a particularly dissipated-looking fellow strolled into a cab-yard, not far from King’s Cross, and asked the proprietor for a job, mentioning that he had driven most things in India from a pony-trap to a four-in-hand, and did not anticipate the slightest difficulty in driving a cab. The proprietor observed that it required some nerve to drive a cab in London. “Nerve!” the applicant exclaimed. “Well, I don’t think I’m deficient in that. One morning in India I woke and found a cobra coiled up on my bed. It wasn’t a nice position to find myself in, but I’d been in many a worse fix and didn’t lose my presence of mind. I’m a bit of ventriloquist, and as there was a big image of some old Hindoo god at the other end of the room I immediately made it speak. As I expected, directly the cobra heard the voice he slipped off the bed like a shot and went for the idol, while I seized the opportunity to bolt from the room.” The cab proprietor congratulated him on his presence of mind, but after appearing to consult a well-worn book, declared that he had not a single vacancy. The applicant did not seem very disappointed, and having succeeded in borrowing twopence, departed.

Many aristocratic, military and professional men have at various times driven a cab for a livelihood, and usually they have been reduced to that strait through their own folly; but there have been cases of young, well-educated men driving cabs for a period until their prospects in life brightened. Only seven or eight years ago a student at one of our great London hospitals passed his “final,” and found himself in the painful position of being a qualified medical man without any money. Unable to obtain a locum tenens or an assistantship, he applied for and received a cabman’s licence. Medical students and their friends made a point of patronising him, and for some months “the doctor” was one of the best-known cabmen in the West End. He has now a very good provincial practice, but the money with which he purchased the nucleus of it was not earned as a cabman. This “doctor” is not the cabman referred to in Chapter IV. The latter, who has been a driver for twenty-one years, is an old man.

An ex-cabman who is well known to many hundreds of Londoners is John Cockram. He was born, in 1833, in French-horn Yard, Holborn, his father being a cab proprietor in a small way of business. Cockram, senior, died early in the forties, leaving a widow and four children totally unprovided for. Moreover, he was deeply in debt to a horse dealer, who speedily caused the stock-in-trade and household furniture to be seized and sold. All that was left to the widow was a bed, a Prayer-book, a Bible, and a watch which had been presented to her by the physician to George IV., in whose service she had been prior to her marriage. Young Cockram, although but eleven years of age, became the main support of his mother, and a few years later she was entirely dependent upon him.

JOHN COCKRAM.