Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

THE CAB INDUSTRY. 329 there are in London between three and four thousand horsekeepers and yardmen dependent upon the cab owner, as well as some hundreds of men and women who make a livelihood as lamp-cleaners. The London Improved Cab Company and all the large proprietors have their own granaries ; but the small owner is obliged to buy his supply of corn from day to day from the corn chandler, who reaps a handsome profit. Practically all the forage consumed by the London cab- horse is imported from Russia, which means an annual able sum. enough, London is the head- quarters of the hansom as a street carriage, Wolver- hampton is the head- quarters of the building industry. Many of the best- appointed hansoms one sees in the streets of the metropolis, as well as in the prov- inces, have been built there. But at the same time it is necessary to add that almost all the leading cab proprietors in London build vehicles for their private busi- ness, and that they loss to agriculture of a consider- Curiously though can when necessary produce specimens of the very highest workmanship. At first sight there is not much connection between the business of driving a hansom and that of a restaurateur. A large number of drivers, however, are engaged superintending the cabmen’s shelters which are found in all parts of London. These positions are given to men specially selected by the authorities of the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund. Light refreshments are provided, and the caterer appropriates all returns, merely paying a small rental to the fund, in return for which the shelter is kept in repair and otherwise maintained in proper working order. The value of a cab varies from ^70 to Z90. The horse is worth on an average £30. A 42 set of harness costs anything from £$ to /"io. The sum invested in the London cab trade falls little short of a million sterling-. What Ö the cabman himself earns, and the consequent turnover in the trade, it is more difficult to determine, owing to the conditions under which the industry is conducted. In London cabdrivers never receive a weekly wage. On the contrary, the proprietor farms out his stock to the driver, receiving in return an average rent of about twelve shillings a day for a hansom and a few shillings less for a four-wheeler, the precise sum fluctuating CLEANING LAMPS (LONDON IMPROVED CAB COMPANY’S DEPOT). according to the season. The driver puts the balance of his earnings in his own pocket — that is when there is a balance. The best returns are as a rule obtained in the West-End, especially in the height of the London season. The average cab- man professes to be well content if at the close of the day of fourteen or sixteen hours he has a surplus of 5s. or 6s. for his private purse. In the provinces a totally different order of things prevails. There it is usual for the proprietors to pay the driver a weekly wage, varying from 14s. to £1 a week. The driver then hands over to his employer all receipts, taking care, however, to deduct for himself anything paid him over and above the legal fare. The