“That was a case where virtue was its own reward.”
“Yes sir; three dollars for ten minutes’ work. I was telling some of the boys on the stand about my adventure, and some of them were saying that there was a gentleman in the town here who used his private carriage for making mashes on young girls along the street after dark. A handsome carriage and a pair of horses is more than some girls can resist.”
“What was the most exciting thing that ever happened you as a hackman?”
“Well now, that would be pretty hard to say. Oh, as a general thing there is nothing ever very special happens to a hackman. The time the block-paving was going on on King and Queen streets, last summer, I had a funny experience. I was on the York street stand one night when a young man with a black beard came up to me. There was a young woman with him, not very good-looking but pretty nicely dressed. He asked for a certain hackman. Well, we don’t care, as a rule, about putting fares out of our own paw into that of any other driver. But this fellow happened to be next hack to me, and heard his name. Anyway, they got in, and I heard the man say, ‘Drive me to the Humber.’ Jim’s going away left me first hack on the stand. I thought no more about it, but in a few minutes a real pretty woman came up to me and described this man, and asked me if I had seen him. I told her he had gone into a hack with a lady. You ought just to have seen that woman’s eyes when I told her that. ‘If you can catch—no, I think she said overtake—overtake that hack, said she, I’ll give you $5.’ Well, now, I knew they had gone to the Humber, and I was pretty sure they wouldn’t drive very fast, so I bundled her in and got on the box. I wasn’t very sure how far they had got with the block-paving on Queen street, but I wanted to strike what was fit to drive on as soon as possible, so as to make sure I wouldn’t pass the hack. So I went along Richmond street to Esther and when I got there I found the street full of blocks. This kept me back, and we didn’t catch that darned hack until we were on the lake shore road. When we got even with it I said, ‘Jimmy, stop your load, I want to speak to you a minute.’ He stopped, and when I assisted my fare out she was trembling like a leaf. She just went over to the other hack and looked in. I just saw her reach in her two hands and when she took ’em out she held in them the other woman’s hat and feathers. She threw that on the ground and trampled on them and then reached for the other girl again. She fairly skull-dragged her out of the hack. I believe she would have choked her if I and another cabman hadn’t pulled her away. And do you know, that big chump in the hack never interfered or said a word. He had a black beard and mustache, and his face was as white as a sheet. As soon as we pulled her away she just sat down in the sand and commenced to cry as if her heart would break. Then the man came out of the hack and came up to her: ‘For heaven’s sake, Kate, don’t make an exhibition of yourself,’ he said. Well, sir, women are the darnedest fools you ever saw. If she had gone to work and scratched the nose off her husband I’d never have interfered, but instead of that she tackles the woman, and when that mean villain began to talk to her and raised her up out of the sand she quieted down and drove off with him in Jim’s hack. Oh women are queer ones. I’ll bet that she puts all the blame on the other woman, and thought her husband was a perfect angel, who had been led astray by a designin’ woman—that’s what they call it. Well, I drove the girlie back to town, and when she had time to think she was hopping mad. Every time she’d look at her mashed hat she wanted to go and find that woman. She said she had as much right to him as the other woman, because he paid attentions to her before he was married, and only married the other woman because she was better fixed than she was. ‘Yes, and better looking,’ I said to myself. But the strangest thing that happened that night was that I was so flustrated that I let that woman go off without ever asking for my $5. But it was all right. A boy came up to me on the stand next day and handed me an envelope with a $10 bill and a slip of paper inside with writing on it, ‘Fare to Humber and back.’”
CHAPTER IV.
BILLIARDISTIC BOYS.
There is no amusement I can think of out of which innocent enjoyment cannot be extracted. Personally, I can see no harm in young people dancing or playing billiards or cards—as long as they are carried on in the homes of these young people. As soon as our youth desire to pursue these pleasures away from the watchful eye of their parents, so soon do they become dangerous. The billiard halls of this city are not supported by men, but by lads. Go to any of them, either day or night, and ten to one you will find the majority of the players are youths not yet come of age. A remarkably large proportion you will find to be mere boys, and the skill with which they play seems to argue that they did not start playing yesterday nor the day before. Just watch the swagger they assume. The blase airs of these young cynics is an article of first-class quality. After you have admired that, I call your attention to the cut of the garments of these young gentlemen—very neat isn’t it—and two or three of them sport watches, gold or silver. Then consider that it costs these cute-looking chaps 30 cents an hour for every hour that they occupy that table and that some of them are here every night, and you will wonder where the wherewithal comes from. Some of them work. Some of them don’t. In any case they must have indulgent parents, or—something. There is a group of Upper Canada College boys round that table. No doubt their wealthy and aristocratic progenitors make liberal allowances to their darling boys. They play good enough to make a good showing in a tournament. If they are as proficient regarding the angles at the base and on the other side of the base of an isosceles triangle as they are with the angles in and about this table they must be fine mathematicians. There is another group playing pool. Don’t look at them too hard, because they are chipping in ten cents on the game. One little boy who has not been playing very long, and who I saw scoop in a “pot” shortly after I came up stairs, has lost the joyous look that then mantled his features. Just study that face. Look at the dreadfully anxious expression with which he follows the movements of the ball, and as it creeps slowly towards a pocket I believe the intensity of that boy’s will makes the inert ivory move an inch further on, and it drops in the pocket. He flushes up to the roots of his hair. If he gets the next ball he will take in the “pot” again. But he is very nervous, and makes a poor shot, and the next in hand pockets the ball. The little chap looks wistfully at the bigger boy who took in the forty cents, and goes up and whispers something to him. “I can’t do it Charley. You’d only lose again. You’ve got no show with us, and you’d better get out of it while you can.” Charley goes and sits down, feeling very bitterly I’ve no doubt. There is the spirit of gaming in its essential characteristic—after all of your own money is gone, borrow from anybody and everybody, and have another hazard.
I went up to another prominent hall in the daytime, and found it filled with youths, but they did not seem such a respectable-looking lot as those I saw at night at the first place. They were a hoodlum lot, very noisy, and poor players. I was much surprised. It seemed astonishing that during the working hours there could be such a number of young men unemployed and yet playing a game which it requires funds to engage in. There is something very ominous about this and no one could think otherwise than that times must be very flush indeed to permit of it.
A visit to a hall which is attached to a saloon showed me that this class of place is patronized mainly by men, nor was there half as much noise as in the room last mentioned. I am told that in some of these places they merely play for the drinks, and much drunkenness is the result.
Pool is at present the most popular form of billiards among the masses. It lends itself more readily to gambling than carom billiards, and any person who takes observation will come to the conclusion that more of the spirit of gaming is disseminated among our young men by this game than by any other half-a-dozen things. It would seem to be quite as necessary that boys should be prevented playing at all in public billiard halls, as it is that they should be prevented buying liquor at a bar.