3-077-983 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches of London Cabs and Cabmen: waiting for a job, 1890. 'The subjects of our Artist's Sketches are familiar types of common objects in the street-world of London... There are in the streets of London, exclusive of the City, about six hundred public cab-ranks, besides those at the railway-stations, with an average of nearly ten standings for cabs at each place, but these are seldom entirely occupied. Considering the enforced idleness of many long hours spent in waiting for fares, the behaviour of the men on these ranks is generally as good as could reasonably be expected...what exposure to all kinds of weather, chilling, wetting, foggy, rainy, windy, frosty, not too often sunshiny - what long drives home at night without a fare, perhaps five shillings behind with the day's out-of-pocket expenses - what wranglings with unjust and arrogant customers, tempting a decent man to swear at the contempt they treated him with - what extra labours, sometimes unpaid, in carrying heavy boxes into the house and upstairs - what loss of time in waiting at the door, ten minutes here, ten minutes there, with a denial of fair remuneration - what mean hagglings over the other sixpence, what angry outbursts of temper, what endurance of haughty scorn!' From "Illustrated London News", 1890.