The tradesmen who supply carriage-horses (and occasionally carriages) by the day, week, month, or year, to all requiring such temporary or continuous accommodation, are termed job-masters, of whom, according to the Post-office Directory, there are 154 located in London; 51 being also cab proprietors, and 28 the owners of omnibuses. They boast, and doubtlessly with perfect truth, that in their stables are the major part of the finest carriage horses in the world. The powerful animals which are seen to dash proudly along the streets, a pair of them drawing a large carriage with the most manifest ease, are, in nine cases out of ten, not the property of the nobleman whose silver crest may adorn the glittering harness, but of the job-master. One of those masters has now 400 horses, some of which are worth 120 guineas, and the value is not less than 60l. per horse, or 24,000l. in all. The premises of some of the job-masters are remarkable for their extent, their ventilation, and their scrupulous cleanliness. All those in a large way of business have establishments in the country as well as in town, and at the latter are received the horses that are lame, that require rest, or that are turned out to grass. The young horses that are brought up from the country fairs, or have been purchased of the country breeders (for job-masters or their agents attend at Horncastle, Northallerton, and all the great horse-fairs in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire), are generally conducted in the first instance to the country establishment of the town master, which may be at Barnet or any place of a like distance. These agents have what is called the pick of the market, not unfrequently visiting the premises of the country horse dealer and there completing purchases without subjecting the farmer (for country horse-breeders and dealers are nearly all farmers) to the trouble and expense of sending his cattle to the fair; and it is thus that the London dealers secure the best stock in the kingdom. Until within twenty or thirty years ago some of the wealthier of the nobility or gentry, as I have previously intimated, would vie with each other during the London season in the display of their most perfect Cleveland bays, or other description of carriage-horses. The animals were at that period walked to London under the care of the coachman and his subordinates, the family travelling post to town. Such a procedure is now never resorted to. Very few noblemen at present bring their carriage-horses to town, even if within a short railway distance; they nearly all job, as it is invariably called: that is, they hire carriage-horses by the month at from twenty to thirty guineas a pair, the job-master keeping the animals by sending the quantity of provender to his customer’s premises, and they are groomed by his own servants. “Why sir,” said a job-master to me, “everybody jobs now. A few bishops do, and lords, and dukes, and judges. Lord D—— jobs, and lots of parsons and physicians; yes lots, sir. The royal family job, all but the Queen herself. The Duchess of Kent jobs. The late Duke of C—— jobbed, and no doubt the present duke will. The Queen Dowager jobbed regularly. It’s a cheaper and better plan for those that must have good horses and handsome carriages. I dare say all the gentlemen in the Albany job, for I know a many that do. By jobbing, rich people can always secure the best horses in the world.” I may add, that any of the masters of whom I have spoken will job a carriage duly emblazoned (if ordered to provide one); he will job harness, too, with the proper armorial bearings about it, and job coachmen and grooms as well. For the use of a first-class carriage 80 guineas a year is paid. A brougham with one horse and a driver is jobbed at 16s. a-day. But these vehicles are usually supplied by jobbing coach-masters: but the jobbing in carriages is not so common as in horses, gentlemen preferring to have their own chariots or broughams, while the jobbing in servants is confined principally to bachelors or gentlemen keeping no establishments.
The job trade I am assured has increased fivefold since the general establishment of railways. In this trade there is no “slop” supply. Even the smaller masters supply horses worth the money; for to furnish bad horses would be at once to lose custom. “Gentlemen are too good judges of horse-flesh,” a small job-master said to me, “to put up with poor cattle, even though they may wear slop coats themselves, and rig their servants out in slop liveries. Nothing shows a gentleman more than his horse; and they can’t get first-rate horses in the country as they can in London, because they’re bought up for the metropolis.”
The men employed in the job-masters’ yards do not live in the yards, except a few of the higher servants, to whom can be entrusted the care of the premises and of the costly animals kept there. Nearly all the men in these yards have been brought up as grooms, and must, in stable phraseology, “know a horse well.” None of them in the better yards receive less than 20s. a-week in wages; nor will any master permit his horses to be abused in any manner. Cruelty to a horse is certain dismissal if detected, and is now, I am glad to be informed on good authority, very rare. I may here mention the rather amusing reply of a rough old groom out of place to my remark that Mr. —— would not allow any of his horses to be in any way abused. “Abused!” said my respondent, confining the meaning of the word to one signification: “Abused! you mayn’t so much as swear at them.” Another rough-spoken person, who was for a time a foreman to a job-master, told me that he had never, or rarely, any difficulty in making a bargain with gentlemen who were judges of horses; “but,” said he, “ladies who set up for judges are dreadful hard to please, and talk dreadful nonsense. What do they know about the points of a horse? But of all of ’em, a —— is the worst to please in a horse or a carriage; she is the very devil, sir.”
The people employed by the job-masters are strong, healthy-looking men, with no lack of grey hairs—always a good sign among them. Their amusements, I am told, are confined to an odd visit to the play, more especially to Astley’s, and to skittle-playing. These enjoyments, however, are rare, as the groom cannot leave his labours for a day and then return to it as a mechanic may. Horses must be tended day and night, Sunday and work-day, so that it is only “by leave” that they can enjoy any recreation. Nearly all of them, however, take great interest in horse-races, steeple-chases, and trotting-matches. Many of them dabble in the Derby and St. Leger lotteries, and some “make a book,” risking from two or three half-crowns to 5l., and sometimes more than they can pay. These parties, however, belong as much to the class of servants as they do to the labourers engaged in connexion with the transit of the metropolis.
I am informed that each of the 150 job-masters resident in London may be said to employ six or seven men in their yards or stables, some having at least double that number in their service, and others, again, only two or three; the latter, however, is the exception rather than the rule. According to this estimate there must be from 900 to 1000 individuals engaged in the job business of London. Their number is made up of stablemen, washers, ostlers, job-coachmen, and glass-coachmen or flymen, besides a few grooms for the job cabriolets. The stableman attends only to the horses in the stables, and gets 2s. 6d. a-day, or 17s. 6d. a-week, standing wages. The washer has from 18s. to 1l. a week, and is employed to clean the carriages only in the best yards, for those of a second-rate character the stableman washes the carriages himself. The ostler attends to the yard, and seldom or never works in the stables. He answers all the rings at the yard bell, and takes the horses and gigs, &c. round to the door. He is, as it were, the foreman or superintendent of the establishment. He usually receives 1l. 1s. a-week standing wages at the best yards, while at those of a lower character only 15s. is given. The job-coachman is distinct from the glass-coachman or flyman. “He often goes away from the yard on a job,” to use the words of my informant, “for three or six months at a stretch.” He is paid by the job-master, and gets 30s. a-week standing wages. He has to drive and attend to his horses in the stable. The glass-coachman or flyman goes out merely by the day or by the hour. He gets 9s. a-week from the job-master, and whatever the customers think proper to give him. Some persons give 6d. an hour to the glass-coachman, and others 5s. a-day for a pair of horses, and from 3s. to 3s. 6d. a-day for one horse. A glass coach, it may be as well to observe, is a carriage and pair hired by the day, and a fly a one-horse carriage hired in a similar manner. The job-coachman and the glass-coachman have for the most part been gentlemen’s servants, and have come to the yard while seeking for another situation. They are mostly married men, having generally wedded either the housemaid, nurse, or cook, in some family in which they have lived. “The lady’s maid,” to quote from my informant, “is a touch above them. The cooks are in general the coachman’s favourite, in regard of getting a little bit of lunch out of her.”
The job-coachman’s is usually a much better berth than that of the glass-coachman or flyman. The gentlefolks who engage the glass-coaches and flies are, I am told, very near, and the flies still nearer than the glass-coaches. The fly people, as the customers were termed to me, generally live about Gower-street and Burton-crescent, Woburn-place, Tavistock-square, Upper Baker-street, and other “shabby-genteel” districts. The great majority of the persons using flies, however, live in the suburbs, and are mostly citizens and lawyers. The chief occasions for the engagement of a fly are visits to the theatre, opera, or parties at night, or else when the wives of the above-named gentry are going out a-shopping; and then the directions, I am told, are generally to draw two or three doors away from the shops, so that the shopmen may not see them drive up in a carriage and charge accordingly. A number of flies are engaged to carry the religious gentry in the suburbs to Exeter Hall during the May meetings; and it is they, I am assured, who are celebrated for over-crowding the vehicles. “Bless you,” said one man whom I saw, “them folks never think there can be too many behind a hoss—six is nothing for them,—and it is them who is the meanest of all to the coachman; for he never, by no chance, receives a glass at their door.” The great treat of the glass-coachman or flyman, however, is a wedding; then they mostly look for 5s.; “but,” said my informant, “brides and bridegrooms is getting so stingy that now they seldom gets more than three.” Formerly, I am assured, they used to get a glass of wine to drink the health of the happy pair; but now the wine has declined to gin, “and even this,” said one man to me, “we has to bow and scrape for before we gits it out of ’em.” There is but little call for glass-coaches compared with flies now. Since the introduction of the broughams and clarences, the glass-coaches have been almost all put on one side, and they are now seldom used for anything but taking a party with a quantity of luggage from the suburbs to the railway. They were continued at weddings till a short time back, but now the people don’t like them. “They have got out of date,” said a flyman; “besides, a clarence or brougham, even with a pair of horses, is one-third cheaper.” There are no glass-coaches now kept in the yards, if they are wanted they are hired at the coachmaker’s. Take one job-master with another, I am informed that they keep on an average six flies each, so that the total number of hack clarences and broughams in the metropolis may be said to be near upon 1000. Postboys are almost entirely discontinued. The majority of them, I am told, have become cabmen. The number of job-horses kept for chance-work in the metropolis may be estimated at about 1000, in addition to the cab and omnibus horses, many of which frequently go out in flies. One lady omnibus proprietor at Islington keeps, I am told, a large number of flies, and so do many of the large cab-proprietors.
According to the Government returns, the total number of carriages throughout Great Britain, in 1848, was 149,000 and odd, which is in the proportion of 1 carriage to every 33 males of the entire population above twenty years of age. Of these carriages upwards of 97,000 were charged with duty, and yielded a revenue of more than 434,000l. while 52,000 were exempt from taxation. Those charged with duty consisted of 67,000 four-wheeled carriages, (of which 26,000 were private conveyances, and 41,000 let to hire,) and 30,000 two-wheeled carriages, of which 24,500 were for private use, and 5,500 for the use of the public:—
The 41,000 four-wheeled carriages let to hire were subdivided in round numbers as follows:—
| Four-wheeled carriages, let to hire without horses | 500 |
| Pony-phaetons, &c. drawn by a pair | 2,000 |
| Broughams, flies, &c. drawn by one horse | 30,000 |
| Hearses | 1,700 |
| Post-chaises | 5,550 |
| Carriers’ conveyances | 1,250 |
| 41,000 |