Sinks with the snorting steeds; the reins are broke,
And from the crackling axle flies the spoke."
The first hirable vehicles in London were the hackney-coaches, so called not from the village of Hackney, as commonly supposed, but from the old word "to hack," or let on hire. The first hackney-coaches were stout-built vehicles, fitted for the rough roads of the time; they made their appearance originally in 1625, and were kept at certain inns, where they had to be sent for when wanted, and these were only at this time twenty in number.
In a proclamation issued by Charles I., in 1635, the King prohibited the general and promiscuous use of hackney-coaches in London, Westminster, and their suburbs, as being "not only a great disturbance to His Majesty, his dearest consort the Queen, the nobility, and others of place and degree, but the streets were so pestered and the pavements broken up that the common passage was thereby hindered." It was therefore commanded that "no hired coaches should be used in London except to travel three miles out of the same."
Two years after the foregoing prohibition the King granted a licence for fifty hackney-coachmen in and about London and Westminster, to keep twelve horses each. This licence was extended to other cities and towns. In course of time the increase of street carriages called forth the indignation of Taylor the water-poet. What would that renowned king of scullers, whose wonted boast was that he had often ferried Shakspeare from Whitehall to Paris Garden, and Ben Jonson from Bankside to the Rose and Hope playhouses, have said had he lived in the present days? Probably the poor water rhymer would have drowned himself in his own element, or at least would have drowned his cares in a more spirited mixture. What a fearful picture did he draw of the calamity that assailed his trade!
"We poor watermen have not the least cause to complain against any conveyance that belongs to persons of worth or quality, but only against the caterpillar swarm of hirelings. They have undone my poor trade, whereof I am a member. This swarm of trade spoilers, like grasshoppers or caterpillars of Egypt, have so overrun the land that we can get no living on the water; for every day, if the Court be at Whitehall, they do rob us of our livings, and carry five hundred and sixty fares daily from us. I pray you but note the streets and the chambers or lodgings in Fleet Street or the Strand, how they are pestered with coaches, especially after a masque or play at Court, where even the very earth shakes and trembles, the casements shatter, totter, patter, and clatter, and such a confused noise is made that a man can neither sleep, speak, hear, write, nor eat his dinner or supper quiet for them; besides, their tumbling din, like counterfeit thunder, doth sour wine, beer, and ale, almost abominally, to the impairing of their healths that drink it, and the making of many a victualler's trade fallen."
In a publication entitled "The Thief," Taylor writes:—
"Carroches, coaches, jades, and Flanders mares,
Do rob us of our shares, our wants, our fares;
Against the ground we stand, and knock our heels