A timekeeper made the following statement to me:—
“I was a grocer’s assistant, but was out of place and had a friend who got me a timekeeper’s office. I have 21s. a week. Mine’s not hard work, but it’s very tiring. You hardly ever have a moment to call your own. If we only had our Sundays, like other working-men, it would be a grand relief. It would be very easy to get an odd man to work every other Sunday, but masters care nothing about Sundays. Some ’busses do stop running from 11 to 1, but plenty keep running. Sometimes I am so tired of a night that I dare hardly sit down, for fear I should fall asleep and lose my own time, and that would be to lose my place. I think timekeepers continue longer in their places than the others. We have nothing to do with money-taking. I’m a single man, and get all my meals at the —— Inn. I dress my own dinners in the tap-room. I have my tea brought to me from a coffee-shop. I can’t be said to have any home—just a bed to sleep in, as I’m never ten minutes awake in the house where I lodge.”
The “odd men” are, as their name imports, the men who are employed occasionally, or, as they term it, “get odd jobs.” These form a considerable portion of the unemployed. If a driver be ill, or absent to attend a summons, or on any temporary occasion, the odd man is called upon to do the work. For this the odd man receives 10d. a journey, to and fro. One of them gave me the following account:—“I was brought up to a stable life, and had to shift for myself when I was 17, as my parents died then. It’s nine years ago. For two or three years, till this few months, I drove a ’bus. I was discharged with a week’s notice, and don’t know for what—it’s no use asking for a reason: I wasn’t wanted. I’ve been put to shifts since then, and almost everything’s pledged that could be pledged. I had a decent stock of clothes, but they’re all at my uncle’s. Last week I earned 3s. 4d., the week before 1s. 8d., but this week I shall do better, say 5s. I have to pay 1s. 6d. a week for my garret. I’m a single man, and have nothing but a bed left in it now. I did live in a better place. If I didn’t get a bite and sup now and then with some of my old mates I think I couldn’t live at all. Mine’s a wretched life, and a very bad trade.”
Hackney-Coach and Cabmen.
I have now described the earnings and conditions of the drivers and conductors of the London omnibuses, and I proceed, in due order, to treat of the Metropolitan Hackney-coach and Cabmen. In official language, an omnibus is “a Metropolitan Stage-carriage,” and a “cab” a “Metropolitan Hackney” one: the legal distinction being that the stage-carriages pursue a given route, and the passengers are mixed, while the fare is fixed by the proprietor; whereas the hackney-carriage plies for hire at an appointed “stand,” carries no one but the party hiring it, and the fare for so doing is regulated by law. It is an offence for the omnibus to stand still and ply for hire, whereas the driver of the cab is liable to be punished if he ply for hire while his vehicle is moving.
According to the Occupation Abstract of 1841, the number of “Coachmen, Coach-guards, and Postboys” in Great Britain at that time was 14,469, of whom 13,013 were located in England, 1123 in Scotland, 295 in Wales, and only 138 in the whole of the British Isles. The returns for the metropolis were as follows:—
| Coach, cab, and omnibus owners | 650 |
| Coachmen, coach and omnibus guards, and postboys | 5428 |
| Grooms and ostlers | 2780 |
| Horse-dealers and trainers | 246 |
| Total | 9104 |
In 1831 the number of “coachowners, drivers, grooms, &c.,” was only 1322, and the “horse-dealers, stable, hackney-coach, or fly-keepers,” 655, or 2047 in all; so that, assuming these returns to be correct, it follows that this class must have increased 7027, or more than quadrupled itself in ten years.
The returns since the above-mentioned periods, however, show a still more rapid extension of the class. For these I am again indebted to the courtesy of the Commissioners of Police, for whose consideration and assistance I have again to tender my warmest thanks.