London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 3

by Henry Mayhew

The Watermen.

The Waterman is an important officer at the cab-stand. He is indeed the master of the rank. At some of the larger stands, such as that at the London and Birmingham Railway terminus, there are four watermen, two being always on duty day and night, fifteen hours by day and nine by night, the day-waterman becoming the night-waterman the following week. On the smaller stands two men do this work, changing their day and night labour in the same way. The waterman must see that there is no “fouling” in the rank, that there is no straggling or crowding, but that each cab maintains its proper place. He is also bound to keep the best order he can among the cabmen, and to restrain any ill-usage of the horses. The waterman’s remuneration consists in the receipt of 1d. from every cabman who joins his rank, for which the cabman is supplied with water for his horse, and ½d. for every cabman who is hired off the rank. There are now 350 odd watermen, and they must be known as trusty men, a rigid inquiry being instituted, and unexceptional references demanded before an appointment to the office takes place. At some stands the supply of water costs these officers 4l. a-year, at others the trustees of the waterworks, or the parishes, supply it gratuitously. All the watermen, I am informed, on good authority, have been connected with the working part of it. They must all be able to read and write, for as one of them said to me, “We’re expected to understand Acts of Parliament.” They are generally strong, big-boned, red-faced men, civil and honest, married (with very few exceptions), and bringing up families. They are great readers of newspapers, and in these they devote themselves first of all to the police reports.

One of the body said, “I have been a good many years a waterman, but was brought up a coachbuilder in a London firm. I then got into the cab-trade, and am now a waterman. I make my 24s. a-week the year through: but there’s stands to my knowledge where the waterman doesn’t make more than half as much; and that for a man that’s expected to be respectable. He can give his children a good schooling—can’t he, sir?—on 12s. a-week, and the best of keep, to be sure. Why, my comings-in—it’s a hard fight for me to do as much. I have eight children, sir. I pay 16l. a year for three tidy rooms in a mews—that’s rather more than 6s. a-week; but I have the carriage place below, and that brings me in a little. Six of my children don’t earn a halfpenny now. My eldest daughter, she’s 17, earns 6d. a-day from a slop-tailor. I hate to see her work, work, work away, poor lass! but it’s a help, and it gets them bits of clothes. Another boy earns 6d. a-day from a coach-builder, and lives with me. Another daughter would try her hand at shirtmaking, and got work from a shirtmaker near Tabernacle Square; and in four days and a half she made five bodies, and they came to 1s. 10½d.; and out of that she had to pay 7½d. for her thread and that, and so there was 1s. 3d. for her hard work; but they gave satisfaction, her employer said, as if that was a grand comfort to her mother and me. But I soon put a stop to that. I said, ‘Come, come, I’ll keep you at home, and manage somehow or anyhow, rather than you shall pull your eyes out of your head for 3½d. a-day, and less; so it’s no more shirts.’ Why, sir, the last time bread was dear—1847, was it?—I paid 19s. and 20s. a-week for bread: it’s now about half what it was then; rather more, though. But there’s one thing’s a grand thing for poor men, and that’s such prime and such cheap fish. The railways have done that. In Tottenham-court-road my wife can buy good soles, as many pairs for 6d. of a night, as would have been 3s. 6d. before railways. That’s a great luxury for a poor man like me, that’s fonder of fish than meat. They are a queer set we have to do with in the ranks. The ‘pounceys,’ (the class I have alluded to as fancy-men, called ‘pounceys’ by my present informant), are far the worst. They sometimes try to bilk me, and it’s always hard to get your dues from contractors. That’s the men what sign for heavy figures. Credit them once, and you’re never paid—never. None signs for so much as the pounceys. They’d sign for 18s. Why, if a pouncey’s girl, or a girl he knows, seems in luck, as they call it—that is, if she picks up a gentleman, partickler if he’s drunk, the pouncey—I’ve seen it many a time—jumps out of the ranks, for he keeps a look-out for the spoil, and he drives to her. It’s the pounceys, too, that mostly go gagging where the girls walk. It’s such a set we have to deal with. Only yesterday an out-and-out pouncey called me such names about nothing. Why, it’s shocking for any female that may be passing. Aye, and of a busy night in the Market (Haymarket), when it’s an opera-night and a play-night, the gentlemen’s coachmen’s as bad for bad language as the cabmen; and some gentlemen’s very clever at that sort of language, too. It’s not as it was in Lord ——’s days. Swells now think as much of one shilling as they did of twenty then. But there’s some swells left still. One young swell brings four quarts of gin out of a public-house in a pail, and the cabmen must drink it out of pint pots. He’s quite master of bad language if they don’t drink fairly. Another swell gets a gallon of gin always from Carter’s, and cabmen must drink it out of quart pots—no other way. It makes some of them mad drunk, and makes them drive like mad; for they might be half drunk to begin with. Thank God, no man can say he’s seen me incapable from liquor for four-and-twenty years. There’s no racketier place in the world than the Market. Houses open all night, and people going there after Vauxhall and them places. After a masquerade at Vauxhall I’ve seen cabmen drinking with lords and gentlemen—but such lords get fewer every day; and cockney tars that was handy with their fists wanting to fight Highlanders that wasn’t; and the girls in all sorts of dresses here and there and everywhere among them, the paint off and their dresses torn. Sometimes cabmen assaults us. My mates have been twice whipped lately. I haven’t, because I know how to humour their liquor. I give them fair play; and more than that, perhaps, as I get my living out of them. Any customer can pick his own cab; but if I’m told to call one, or none’s picked, the first on the rank, that’s the rule, gets the fare. I take my meals at a coffee-shop; and my mate takes a turn for me when I’m at dinner, and so do I for him. My coffee-shop cuts up 150lbs. a-meat a-day, chiefly for cabmen. A dinner is 6½d. without beer: meat 4d., bread 1d., vegetables 1d., and waiter ½d.; at least I give him a halfpenny. At ——’s public-house I can dine capitally for 8½d., and that includes a pint of beer. On Sundays there’s a dessert of puddings, and then it’s 1s. A waterman’s berth when it’s one of the best isn’t so good, I fancy, as a privileged cabman’s.”

Suggestions for Regulating the Trade.

I shall now conclude with some statements of sundry evils connected with the cab business, under the old and also under the new system, and shall then offer suggestions for their rectification.

One cab proprietor, after expressing his opinion that the new police arrangements for the regulation of the trade would be a decided improvement, suggested it would be an excellent plan to make policemen of the watermen; for then, he said, the cabmen thieves would be reluctant to approach the ranks. He also gave me the following statement of what he considered would be greater improvements. “I think,” he said, “it would do well for those in the cab-trade if licenses were made 10l. instead of 5l., with a regulation that 5l. should be returned to any one on bringing his plates in previous to leaving the trade, and so not wanting his license any longer. This would, I believe, be a check to any illegal transfer, as men wouldn’t be so ready to hand over their plates to other parties when they disposed of their cabs, if they were sure of 5l. in a regular and legal way. I would also,” he said, “reduce the duty from 10s. a-week to 5s., and that would allow cabs to ply for 6d. a-mile. As everything is cheaper, I wonder people don’t want cheaper cabs. ’Busses don’t at all answer the purpose; for if it’s a wet day, almost every one has to walk some way to his ’bus, and some way to the house he’s going to. Sunday visitors particularly; and they like the wet least of all. Now, if cabs ran at 6d., they could take a man and his wife and two children, and more, two miles for 1s., or four miles for 2s., about what the ’busses would charge four persons for those distances: and the persons could go from door to door as cheap; or, if not quite so cheap, they’d save it in not having their clothes spoiled by the weather, and go far more comfortably than in a ’bus full of wet people and dripping umbrellas. I know most cabmen don’t like to hear of this plan; and why? Because, by the present system they reckon upon getting a shilling a mile; and they almost always do get it for an 8d. fare, and for longer distances oft enough. But it wouldn’t be so easy to overcharge when there’s a fixed coin a-mile for the fare. It would be one, two, three, four, five, or as many sixpences as miles. Now it’s 1s. 4d. for two miles, and that’s 1s. 6d.—1s. 8d. for over two miles, and that means 2s.—of course cabmen don’t carry change unless for an even sum; 2s. 4d. for over three miles and a half, and that’s 2s. 6d. if not 3s., and so on. The odd coppers make cabmen like the present way.”

I now give a statement concerning “foul plates” and informers. It may, however, be necessary to state first, that every cab proprietor must be licensed, at a cost to him of 5l., and that he must affix a plate, with his number, &c., to his cab, to show that he is duly licensed: while every driver and waterman is licensed at a cost to each of 5s. a-year, and is bound to wear a metal ticket showing his number. The law then provides, that in case of unavoidable necessity, which must be proved to the satisfaction of the magistrate, a proprietor may be allowed to employ an unlicensed person for twenty-four hours; with this exception, every unlicensed person acting as driver, and every licensed person lending his license, or permitting any other person to use or wear his ticket, is to be fined 5l. The same provision applies to any proprietor “lending his license,” but with a penalty of 10l. I now give the statement:—

“You see, sir, if a man wants to dispose of his cab, why he must dispose of it as a cab. Well, if it ain’t answered for him, he’ll get somebody or other willing to try it on. And the new hand will say, ‘I’ll give you so much, and work your plates for you;’ and so he does when a bargain’s made. Well, this thing’s gone on till there’s 1000 or 1200 ‘foul plates’ in the trade; and then government says, ‘What a lot of foul plates! There must be a check to this.’ And a nice check they found. Mister —— (continued my informant, laying a peculiar emphasis on the mister), the informer, was set to work, and he soon ferreted out the foul plates, and there was a few summonses about them at first; but it’s managed different now. Suppose I had a foul plate in my place here, though in course I wouldn’t, but suppose I had, Mister —— would drop in some day and look about him, and say little or nothing, but it’s known what he’s up to. In a day or two comes Mister —— No. 2, he’s Mister —— No. 1’s friend; and he’ll look about and say, ‘Oh, Mister ——, I see you’ve got so-and-so—it’s a foul plate. I’ll call on you for 2s. in a day or two.’ He calls sure enough; and he calls for the same money, perhaps, every three months. Some pays him 5s. a-year regular; and if he only gets that on 1000 plates, he makes a good living of it—only 250l. a-year, 5l. a-week, that’s all. In course Mister —— No. 1 has nothing to do with Mister —— No. 2, not he: it’s always Mister —— No. 2 what’s paid, and never Mister —— No. 1. But if Mister —— No. 2 ain’t paid, then Mister —— No. 1 looks in, and lets you know there may be a hearing about the foul plate; and so he goes on.”

This same Mister —— No. 1, I am informed by another cab proprietor, is employed by the Excise to see after the duty, which has to be paid every month. Should the proprietor be behind with the 10s. a-week, the informer is furnished with a warrant for the month’s money; and this he requires a fee of from 10s. to 1l. (according to the circumstances of the proprietor), to hold over for a short time. It is difficult to estimate how many fees are obtained in this way every month; but I am assured that they must amount to something considerable in the course of the year.

It is proper that I should add that my informants in this and other matters refer to the systems with which they had been long familiar. The new regulations when I was engaged in this inquiry, had been so recently in force, that the cab proprietors said they could not yet judge of their effect; but it was believed that they would be beneficial. An experienced man complained to me that the clashing of the magistrates’ decisions, especially when the police were mixed up with the complaints against cabmen, was an evil. My informant also pointed out a clause in the 2d and 3d Victoria, cap. 71, enacting that magistrates should meet once a quarter, each furnishing a report of his proceedings as respects the “Act for regulating the Police Courts in the Metropolis.” Such a meeting, and a comparison of the reports, might tend to a uniformity in decisions; but the clause, I am told, is a dead letter, no such meeting taking place. Another cab proprietor said it would be a great improvement if an authorised officer of the police, or a government officer, had the fixing of plates on carriages, together with the inspection and superintendence of them afterwards. These plates, it was further suggested to me, should be metallic seals, and easily perceptible inside or out. Some of the cab proprietors complain of the stands in Oxford-street (the best in all London, they say), being removed to out-of-the-way places.