A WORD FOR CABBY.

THE following address to the public, by a cabman, was lately put into my hands. I quote word for word, knowing that the document will have most interest in a genuine unamended form.

"A CABMAN'S ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC.

      "My daily duties commence by my going to the Stables at Seven in the Morning, (and to do it comfortably, I must be up between Five and Six); Twenty Minutes are occupied in Harnessing my Horse and making arrangements for the day; and I then leave, having to obtain Seventeen Shillings per day, during the Summer, the least being 11s. for the Winter Months for the use of the Cab and Horse, before I can earn anything for myself. "I am now your servant; I take you to the Train, House of Business, Opera or Play; I am urged by some to 'put 'em along;' by others I am called a reckless driver; by some I am commended for driving steadily; others tell me they could roll it in less time, (my usual pace is Eight miles an hour.) By some I am told that I am drunk, (I have been an Abstainer Four Years,) others say start him if he won't have anything to drink; in fact, every epithet that the mind of man can frame I must hear, and every ebullition of passion I must patiently endure, or answer at the risk of being called insolent, and perhaps summoned for the same. Such is a specimen of the treatment which We Cabmen receive in our daily life from 'that ungrateful Taskmaster the Public.'

      "I change my Horse between Two and Five in the Afternoon; and at that time I very often see Mechanics, especially in the Building trades, leaving their daily labour, and on Saturday Afternoon in the City the rest of nearly all has begun. I return to the Stable about half-past Nine o'clock, and after having watered my Horse, which I had out in the Morning; and other necessary duties; I go home and retire to rest about half-past Ten; and rise again at the time which I have before mentioned.

      "Some of us have but a few pence out of a Pound, after we have paid the Master and his subordinates; and have to walk Two or Three miles in the Morning and Night. My Fellow Drivers who have Families hardly speak to their children from one week's end to another. When they get up, their Children are in Bed or at School; and when they go home they are in bed.

      "I would now address a few words to you professing Christians, and I ask you whether my Fellow Drivers shall have that day of rest which we so much need, and which a great many of us would highly prize. We cannot appeal to the Masters, for while you continue to employ Cabs on the Lord's Day, the Masters will continue to send us out. We cannot look to the Government: they have done much for us already, in remitting the duty, and rendering it optional whether the Master takes a Six or Seven days plate, (he pays Six Shillings per week for the Six days plate, and Seven Shillings per week for the Seven days plate), a concession which I think counterbalances every hardship, (apparent or real) which presses upon the Cabman. It is to you then, professing Christians, that We look; and We hope that you will not, by your individual example, aid a cause so destructive in its effects to the Souls and Bodies of your Fellow Men."

      Such is the cabman's case.

      Heartily wishing my unknown friend success in his appeal for a weekly day of rest, both on the score of fair play, and for the higher objects to which he refers, let me, meanwhile, bespeak the kind consideration of the readers of "The Leisure Hour" to Cabby's condition generally, I mean especially the London Cabby.

      There is no denying that Cabby and the public live for the most part on bad terms. He is regarded by many as the very embodiment of extortion, discontent, and incivility. His hand is against every man, and every man's hand, in defence, is against him. An overcharge and dissatisfaction with a fare, however liberal, are things, as a matter of course, to be expected and provided against. Who can translate into Queen's English the grumbling gutturals of Cabby's dialect? Are not his very looks against him? That sinister and haggard countenance can only be caused by love of drink and cruelty to horseflesh. In this not very amiable light is Cabby too commonly regarded. In short, he is looked upon as a necessary public evil, rather than a useful public servant.

      Now I do not mean to say that Cabby does not sometimes give good reason for the bad opinion entertained of him. Amongst ten thousand men, of a lowly class, with every disadvantage of early training and present occupation, it is to be expected that some thoroughly bad characters should be found. But, taking the London cabmen as a whole, there is room for kindly consideration from the public, as well as for improvement on their part. Society has contributed to make Cabby the uncouth creature he is, and society must lend a hand in his. amendment. Some of the noble and generous philanthropists who make the poverty and distress of our street-life their special study, have lately directed notice to the London cabmen. I wish to say a few words in support of the more charitable and generous opinion that has set in towards them.

      It must be borne in mind that comparatively few cabmen are proprietors of the vehicles they drive. They usually rent them at so much a day, and the rent varies according to the localities in which they ply for hire, and the general appearance of the cab and horse. But in every case the rent charge is exceedingly high, and Cabby must do a good day's work, and take some extraordinary good fares, to pay the master and get anything for himself and family. With a hard master in prospect, with only a few shillings towards the daily rent in his pocket, with long waiting on the rank for a fare, and having to do with persons who are rigorously just towards him, however profuse they may be to waiters and porters, it is scarcely to be wondered at that Cabby now and then loses his temper, and asks what his heart would have, rather than what the law allows. It is an anxious time for him until he can "make his price" for the day.

      Besides, however smiling and good-natured a Cabby may look, every one, from the porter at the railway station to the small boy at the hotel who is kept to run errands, from the apprentice in the Poultry to the man of fortune in Piccadilly, every one seems to have the liberty to say what they like to him. Respectful silence he is expected to maintain under the most cutting expressions or shabby treatment; for policeman X is on his beat, and the magistrate's office is not far off. Taking these two facts alone into consideration, the amount of money Cabby has daily to pay, and the treatment he daily receives, I do not wonder at his irritability and occasional impertinences.

      Take the histories of two cabmen, one in the east, the other in the west of London, the former a day Cabby, the latter a night Cabby.

      My friend Whitechapel lives in Grindman's Rents; he has a wife and four children. The collector comes round every Saturday night to demand four and sixpence for living in a broken-down tenement that imparts diseases that no doctor can ever cure. He is expected to pay every day seventeen and sixpence as cab rent, besides finding, at all events, bread for his family. These are his liabilities; and I have seen Whitechapel earnestly attempt to meet them day after day. He has risen at six o'clock in the morning, although, to use his own phrase, "he didn't turn in till half arter eleven last night." He has been off to the stables to see after his nag, to try to patch over the bruise on the knees he got by yesterday's tumble; he gives a trifle to the ostler, and gently moves away to his stand, where the waterman's grumbling has to be silenced in a similar manner. He has to bear the abuse and threats of two or three on the rank, because he took a fare from their lawful possession on the preceding day. He takes his seat on the box if he is in a gloomy mood, or he has a chat with some of his brethren. By his cab he waits and waits; first cab goes, then second, and so on until he is first cab. Hah! a fare. Open goes the door, and "Where to, Sir?" he demands; it is only a sixpenny affair after all his waiting, and that is thrown, of course accidentally, into the street, instead of being placed in his hand at the journey's end. Where shall he go now? If he returns to the rank, that will be filled up by new-comers, and his chance of a fare for many an hour will be small; and so perhaps he saunters from street to street, not daring to ask for passengers, but anxiously on the look-out for them, plying for fare off the stand not being allowed. And so the day wears away, bringing him now and then a stray shilling or so towards making up his seventeen and sixpence. Between ten and eleven he faces the master, who demands the rent of the day, and frequently poor Whitechapel is some seven or eight shillings behind, which amount is put to the next day's rent, leaving him nothing to take home to his wife and four children. And this is the daily history of many a Cabby; and it is not very wonderful that he does not take quite kindly to this state of things.

      My friend Regent Street, a night cabby, sometimes does not fare much better than Whitechapel. In all weathers, amid rain, hail, and snow, he turns out about nine o'clock in the evening, and takes his stand upon the rank. The first part of the night, if he is in a locality where midnight amusements are going on, he may fare tolerably well, although he has patiently to put up with the insults of drunken and dissolute passengers. But as the small hours of the night draw on, his hopes of raising sufficient to pay his cab rent, and to get a little for himself, are slender indeed. Places of amusement are closed, members of Parliament are all gone home, and through the silent streets only the measured tread of the policeman echoes. For awhile he muffles himself up in his capes, and with a horse-rug over his knees, Cabby sits moodily upon his box, saying to every passer-by, "Cab Sir, cab Sir!" Then he walks up and down the rank, exchanging bitter experiences with his comrades, or endeavouring by increased circulation to defy the keen morning air. Perhaps he leaves one rank and drives off to another, hoping to meet with better success, and failing here, he goes to the nearest railway station to meet the night trains as they come in from the country. Forestalled here by the company's cabs, he, with many others who have come on a similar errand, has nothing to do but to bear his disappointment in the best manner he can. The day dawns and finds him cold and shivering, glad to obtain a penny cup of coffee from our street Soyers. The morning cabs begin to appear, and poor Regent Street must take his departure with the few shillings he has earned. He will have to hear his master say, "If this thing continues much longer, you can't drive any more for me, my man;" and he will have to say what he can to his landlord, get over his butcher and baker if he can, and, if he is a kind-hearted fellow, he will literally have to break down when he rejoins his poor famished wife and family. Cabby without his badge, and apart from his vehicle, is, I assure you, a human being, and is no stranger to hardship and to the trials of hope deferred.

      A word for Cabby, then, I trust will not just now be out of place. I see by the papers that Lord Shaftesbury has proposed to set on foot a cabman's club, consisting of a provident society, a reading-room, and general meeting-room. Cabby is putting on his best behaviour, and seems determined to try what effect politeness and civility will have upon the public. It is but common justice that those overtures on his part should be met with kindness and fairness by the public. We cannot do without Cabby. Paterfamilias coming up from the country, with a large family and no end of luggage; the broker, to whom a certain minute of a certain hour on 'Change will be worth hundreds of pounds; the traveller, hastening to catch his train; and the thousands to whom cabs are absolutely necessary, what would they all do without Cabby? We must keep him in existence; but the question is, whether we cannot, by kindness and sympathy, make his existence more pleasant to him and agreeable to us. Can he not be treated with the consideration which is usually shown towards useful servants, whether in the field or in the house? Can he not be spoken to as a human being, and paid fairly for the work he has done, even as the butcher, and baker, and other tradespeople receive their money? Can no allowance be made for occasional hasty words, when a desolate home rises into view, and Cabby has no money in his pocket to meet either his family or the master, with whom he is already heavily in arrears? Need people ask so frequently for his number, and talk so threateningly about magistrates and policemen, when they must know that Cabby, if not quite, is nearly in the right? Cannot a little, even a very little, of that charity which thinketh no evil be extended towards him? When people are good-natured, now-a-days, towards shoe-blacks, sweeps, costermongers, and street venders of all descriptions, and even convicts and felons, cannot a minimum of attention be shown to my distressed friend? I do sincerely believe that Cabby is an improveable subject, and that, if the public will only lend a helping hand, we shall soon see a great change for the better in his daily behaviour. He has been made to feel that incivility on his part will not be to his advantage; let us see what effect kindness on the part of the public will have upon his conduct. My opinion is, that if he is fairly treated, he will shake off his uncouthness, and be as polite to passengers as policemen are to the Lord Mayor of London. It is with the hope that my readers will sympathize with this opinion, and daily remember it whenever they require my friend's assistance, that I volunteer this word for Cabby.

      Let me offer one or two suggestions in conclusion. The difficulty, no doubt, will be to distinguish between the deserving and the undeserving; for many who would gladly be liberal to an honest, sober, hard-working man, are afraid of encouraging the intemperate and depraved. If the cabman's club already mentioned were properly organized, with branches in the different districts of the metropolis, it would be easy for the members to have a distinctive dress, the wearing of which would be at least a guarantee of submission to certain rules and conditions besides the strict regulations of police. Take the case of the shoeblack brigade for illustration. The public know that any gratuity bestowed on the boys with the livery of that association is likely to be well bestowed and usefully applied. Bad conduct would deprive them of their distinctive dress, with its claims on public consideration. There is at least some guarantee for charity being well bestowed. Those cabmen willing to submit to certain regulations might, in like manner, be candidates for public favour, and the council of their club, or a jury of their own order, would, as far as possible, secure the good behaviour of the members. At present, the fear of punishment for bad conduct is the only motive in operation. Why not add the higher and stronger motive of hope of reward for good conduct? I leave this hint for the practical consideration of those who are now interesting themselves about the social condition of the London cabmen.