“Take a regular, ponderous, rickety, London hackney-coach, of the old school, and let any man have the boldness to assert, if he can, that he ever beheld any object on the face of the earth which at all resembles it unless, indeed, it were another hackney-coach of the same date. We have recently observed on certain stands, and we say it with deep regret, rather dapper green chariots, and coaches of polished yellow, with four wheels of the same colour as the coach, whereas it is perfectly notorious to every one who has studied the subject, that every wheel ought to be of a different colour, and a different size. These are innovations, and, like other miscalled improvements, awful signs of the restlessness of the public mind, and the little respect paid to our time-honoured institutions. Why should hackney-coaches be clean? Our ancestors found them dirty, and left them so. Why should we, with a feverish wish to ‘keep moving,’ desire to roll along at the rate of six miles an hour, while they were content to rumble over the stones at four? These are solemn considerations. Hackney-coaches are part and parcel of the law of the land; they were settled by the Legislature; plated and numbered by the wisdom of Parliament.
“Then why have they been swamped by cabs and omnibuses? Or why should people be allowed to ride quickly for eightpence a mile, after Parliament had come to the solemn decision that they should pay a shilling a mile for riding slowly? We pause for a reply—and, having no chance of getting one, begin a fresh paragraph....
“There is a hackney-coach stand under the very window at which we are writing; there is only one coach on it now, but it is a fair specimen of the class of vehicles to which we have alluded—a great, lumbering, square concern, of a dingy yellow colour (like a bilious brunette), with very small glasses, but very huge frames; the panels are ornamented with a faded coat of arms, in shape something like a dissected bat, the axle-tree is red, and the majority of the wheels are green. The box is partially covered by an old great-coat, with a multiplicity of capes, and some extraordinary-looking clothes; and the straw, with which the canvas cushion is stuffed, is sticking up in several places, as if in rivalry of the hay, which is peeping through the chinks in the boot. The horses with drooping heads, and each with a mane and tail as scanty and straggling as those of a worn-out rocking-horse, are standing patiently on some damp straw, occasionally wincing, and rattling the harness; and now and then, one of them lifts his mouth to the ear of his companion, as if he were saying in a whisper, that he should like to assassinate the coachman. The coachman himself is in the watering-house; and the waterman, with his hands forced into his pockets as far as they can possibly go, is dancing the ‘double shuffle,’ in front of the pump, to keep his feet warm....
“Talk of cabs! Cabs are all very well in cases of expedition, when it’s a matter of neck or nothing, life or death, your temporary home or your long one. But, besides a cab’s lacking that gravity of deportment which so peculiarly distinguishes a hackney-coach, let it never be forgotten that a cab is a thing of yesterday, and that he never was anything better. A hackney-cab had always been a hackney-cab, from his first entry into life; whereas a hackney-coach is a remnant of past gentility, a victim to fashion, a hanger-on of an old English family, wearing their arms, and in days of yore, escorted by men wearing their livery, stripped of his finery, and thrown upon the world, like a once-smart footman when he is no longer sufficiently juvenile for his office, progressing lower and lower in the scale of four-wheeled degradation, until at last it comes to—a stand!”
These new cabs, indeed, were, as Dickens says, a thing of yesterday, but they had had ancestors. Their immediate forefathers came from Paris, where they had been known for some time under the name of cabriolets de place. Light two-wheeled carriages, these were, which had been evolved quite naturally from the original French gig of the seventeenth century. The popularity of these cabriolets in Paris naturally led certain enterprising people in London to attempt their importation, but there was a difficulty to be surmounted. The proprietors of the hackney-coaches had secured a monopoly for carrying people in the streets of London. In 1805, however, licences were obtained for nine cabriolets, which thereupon started to run. In these two passengers could be carried, and the driver sat side by side with his fares.
They were not a great success. In the first place they were not allowed except in certain areas, and in the second passengers did not apparently appreciate the close proximity of the driver. A number of years passed before they either increased in numbers or caught the public fancy. But in 1823, the Mr. Davies who had designed the cab-phaeton built twelve new cabriolets, which were put on to the streets for hire at the end of April.
“‘Cabriolets,’ runs a newspaper account, ‘were, in honour of His Majesty’s birthday, introduced to the public this [April 23rd] morning. They are built to hold two persons inside besides the driver (who is partitioned off from his company), and are furnished with a book of fares for the use of the public, to prevent the possibility of imposition. These books will be found in a pocket hung inside the head of the cabriolet. The fares are one-third less than hackney-coaches.’”
These new cabs, painted yellow, had one novel feature which must have astonished the inhabitants, for the driver’s seat was a rather comical affair at the side—entirely outside the hood. In this way privacy was ensured, particularly if the curtains in front of the hood were drawn together. “The hood,” says Mr. Moore,[50] “strongly resembled a coffin standing on end, and earned for the vehicle the nickname of ‘coffin-cab.’” Cruikshank’s picture of one of these, to illustrate a Sketch by Boz, shows the curious shape of the hood very well. In a short while these cabriolets became popular—there were over one hundred and fifty of them in 1830—particularly with the younger generation. A verse of a then popular song mentions them:—
“In days of old when folks got tired,
A hackney-coach or a chariot was hired;
But now along the streets they roll ye
In a shay with a cover called a cabrioly,”
which hints at a slightly incorrect pronunciation! But in a short while the cockney found it easier to say cab, did so, and has done so ever since.