For it's always in their power To engage me by the hour, To be eppy in me ransom cab! sang Arthur Roberts as "Gentleman Joe." Recent statistics show that there are only two dozen horse-cobs, hansoms and growlers now in all London. Until a year or two ago, you could find a four-wheeler or two at the stations, for old folk are still nervous of motors. There are none now. Last summer a couple of hansoms, very smartly turned out, did good business among the Coronation foreign visitors, who wanted to know what the "Gondola of London" was really like. I have not seen even one this year. Indeed it is a mystery how the two dozen survivors make a living. In fact they scarcely would without the aid of the Cab Drivers'
Benevolent Association founded by the Marquess of Townshend in 1870, and well supported by hunting men and all horse-lovers.
Those who remember the pre-motor days will agree that a hansom was really rather a terrifying vehicle. When on a snowy, frosty day the horse set nis feet at the top of St. James's Street or the Haymarket and slid to the bottom, you never. knew when you might be shot out on to his ears. And in rainy -weather when the cabman opened the trap in the roof to esk for directions you were liable to a deluge from the brim of his hat. But take it all round a drive in a hansom was a delightful! experience, the more so that it was much rarer for most of us than a taxi drive is now, and hansoms were a unique feature which fitted in appropriately to London of the gay nineties and spacious days of Edward VIL In this mechanical age they have no place.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.