London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) (65 page)

Omnibus Conductors

[pp. 355–6] The conductor, who is vulgarly known as the ‘cad’, stands on a small projection at the end of the omnibus; and it is his office to admit and set down every passenger, and to receive the amount of fare, for which amount he is, of course, responsible to his employers. He is paid 4
s
. a day, which he is allowed to stop out of the monies he receives. He fills up a waybill each journey, with the number of passengers. I find that nearly all classes have given a quota of their number to the list of conductors. Among them are grocers, drapers, shopmen, barmen, printers, tailors, shoe-makers, clerks, joiners, saddlers, coach-builders, porters, town-travellers, carriers, and fish-mongers. Unlike the drivers, the majority of the conductors are unmarried men; but, perhaps, only a mere majority. As a matter of necessity, every conductor must be able to read and write. They are discharged more frequently than the drivers; but they require good characters before their appointment. From one of them, a very intelligent man, I had the following statement:

‘I am 35 or 36, and have been a conductor for six years. Before that I was a lawyer’s clerk, and then a picture-dealer; but didn’t get on, though I maintained a good character. I’m a conductor now, but wouldn’t be long behind a ‘bus if it wasn’t from necessity. It’s hard to get anything else to do that you can keep a wife and family on, for people won’t have you from off a ‘bus. The worst part of my business is its uncertainty, I may be discharged any day, and not know for what. If I did, and I was accused unjustly, I might bring my action; but it’s merely, ”You’re not wanted.” I think I’ve done better as a conductor in hot weather, or fine weather, than in wet; though I’ve got a good journey when it’s come on showery, as people was starting for or starting from the City. I had one master, who, when his ‘bus came in full in the wet, used to say, ”This is prime. Them’s God Almighty’s customers; he sent them.” I’ve heard him say so many a time. We get far more ladies and children, too, on a fine day; they go more a-shopping then, and of an evening they go more to public places. I pay over my money every night. It runs from 40
s
. to 4
l
. 4
s
., or a little more on extraordinary occasions. I have taken more money since the short uns were established. One day before that I took only 18
s
. There’s three riders and more now, where there was two formerly at the higher rate. I never get to a public place, whether it’s a chapel or a play-house, unless, indeed, I get a holiday, and that is once in two years. I’ve asked for a day’s holiday and been refused. I was told I might take a week’s holiday, if I liked, or as long as I lived. I’m quite ignorant of what’s passing in the world, my time’s so taken up. We only know what’s going on from hearing people talk in the ‘bus. I never care to read the paper now, though I used to like it. If I have two minutes to spare, I’d rather take a nap than anything else. We know no more politics than the backwoodsmen of America, because we haven’t time to care about it. I’ve fallen asleep on my step as the ‘bus was going on, and almost fallen off. I have often to put up with insolence from vulgar fellows, who think it fun to chaff a cad, as they call it. There’s no help for it. Our masters won’t listen to complaints: if we are not satisfied we can go. Conductors are a sober set of men. We must be sober. It takes every farthing of our wages to live well enough, and keep a wife and family. I never knew but one teetotaller on the road. He’s gone off it now, and he looked as if he was going off altogether. The other day a teetotaller on the ‘bus saw me take a drink of beer, and he began to talk to me about its being wrong; but I drove him mad with argument, and the passengers took part with me. I live one and a half mile off the place I start from. In summer I sometimes breakfast before I start. In winter, I never see my three children, only as they’re in bed; and I never hear their voices, if they
don’t wake up early. If they cry at night it don’t disturb me; I sleep so heavy after fifteen hours’ work out in the air. My wife doesn’t do anything but mind the family, and that’s plenty to do with young children. My business is so uncertain. Why, I knew a conductor who found he had paid 6
d
. short – he had left it in a corner of his pocket; and he handed it over next morning, and was discharged for that – he was reckoned a fool. They say the sharper the man the better the ‘busman. There’s a great deal in understanding the business, in keeping a sharp look-out for people’s hailing, and in working the time properly. If the conductor’s slow the driver can’t get along; and if the driver isn’t up to the mark the conductor’s bothered. I’ve always kept time except once, and that was in such a fog, that I had to walk by the horses’ heads with a link, and could hardly see my hand that held the link; and after all I lost my ‘bus, but it was all safe and right in the end. We’re licensed now in Scotland-yard. They’re far civiller there than in Lancaster-place. I hope, too, they’ll be more particular in granting licenses. They used to grant them day after day, and I believe made no inquiry. It’ll be better now. I’ve never been fined: if I had I should have to pay it out of my own pocket. If you plead guilty it’s 5
s
. If not, and it’s very hard to prove that you did display your badge properly if the City policeman – there’s always one on the look-out for us – swears you didn’t, and summons you for that: or, if you plead not guilty, because you weren’t guilty, you may pay 1
l
. I don’t know of the checks now; but I know there are such people. A man was discharged the other day because he was accused of having returned three out of thirteen short. He offered to make oath he was correct; but it was of no use – he went.’

Omnibus Timekeepers

[pp. 356–7] Another class employed in the omnibus trade are the timekeepers. On some routes there are five of these men, on others four. The timekeeper’s duty is to start the omnibus at the exact moment appointed by the proprietors, and to report any delay or irregularity in the arrival of the vehicle. His hours are the same as those of the drivers and conductors, but as he is stationary his work is not so fatiguing. His remuneration is generally 21
s
. a week, but on some stations more. He must never leave the spot. A timekeeper on Kennington Common has 28
s
. a week. He is employed 16 hours daily, and has a box to shelter him from the weather when it is foul. He has to keep time for forty ‘busses. The men who may be seen in the great thorough-fares noting every omnibus that passes, are not timekeepers; they are employed by Government,
so that no omnibus may run on the line without paying the duty.

A timekeeper made the following statement to me:

‘I was a grocer’s assistant, but was out of place and had a friend who got me a timekeeper’s office. I have 21
s
. a week. Mine’s not hard work, but it’s very tiring. You hardly ever have a moment to call your own. If we only had our Sundays, like other working-men, it would be a grand relief. It would be very easy to get an odd man to work every other Sunday, but masters care nothing about Sundays. Some ‘busses do stop running from 11 to 1, but plenty keep running. Sometimes I am so tired of a night that I dare hardly sit down, for fear I should fall asleep and lose my own time, and that would be to lose my place. I think timekeepers continue longer in their places than the others. We have nothing to do with money-taking. I’m a single man, and get all my meals at the — Inn. I dress my own dinners in the tap-room. I have my tea brought to me from a coffee-shop. I can’t be said to have any home – just a bed to sleep in, as I’m never ten minutes awake in the house where I lodge.’

The ‘odd men’ are, as their name imports, the men who are employed occasionally, or, as they term it, ‘get odd jobs’. These form a considerable portion of the unemployed. If a driver be ill, or absent to attend a summons, or on any temporary occasion, the odd man is called upon to do the work. For this the odd man receives 10
d
. a journey, to and fro. One of them gave me the following account: ‘I was brought up to a stable life, and had to shift for myself when I was 17, as my parents died then. It’s nine years ago. For two or three years, till this few months, I drove a ‘bus. I was discharged with a week’s notice, and don’t know for what – it’s no use asking for a reason: I wasn’t wanted. I’ve been put to shifts since then, and almost everything’s pledged that could be pledged. I had a decent stock of clothes, but they’re all at my uncle’s. Last week I earned 3
s
. 4
d
., the week before 1
s
. 8
d
., but this week I shall do better, say 5
s
. I have to pay 1
s
. 6
d
. a week for my garret. I’m a single man, and have nothing but a bed left in it now. I did live in a better place. If I didn’t get a bite and sup now and then with some of my old mates I think I couldn’t live at all. Mine’s a wretched life, and a very bad trade.’

[pp. 361–3] Among the present cabdrivers are to be found, as I learned from trustworthy persons, quondam greengrocers, costermongers, jewellers, clerks, broken-down gentlemen, especially turf gentlemen, carpenters, joiners, saddlers, coach-builders, grooms, stable-helpers,
footmen, shopkeepers, pickpockets, swell-mobsmen, housebreakers, innkeepers, musicians, musical-instrument makers, ostlers, some good scholars, a good number of broken-down pawnbrokers, several ex-policemen, draper’s assistants, barmen, scene-shifters, one baronet, and as my informant expressed it, ‘such an uncommon sight of folks that it would be uncommon hard to say what they was’. Of the truthfulness of the list of callings said to have contributed to swell the numbers of the cabmen there can be no doubt, but I am not so sure of ‘the baronet’. I was told his name, but I met with no one who could positively say that he knew Sir V— C— as a cabdriver. This baronet seems a tradition among them. Others tell me that the party alluded to is merely nicknamed the Baron, owing to his being a person of good birth, and having had a college education. The ‘flashiest’ cabman, as he is termed, is the son of a fashionable master-tailor. He is known among cabdrivers as the ‘Numpareil’, and drives one of the Hansom cabs. I am informed on excellent authority, a tenth, or, to speak beyond the possibility of cavil, a twelfth of the whole number of cabdrivers are ‘fancy men’. These fellows are known in the cab trade by a very gross appellation. They are the men who live with women of the town, and are supported, wholly or partially, on the wages of the women’s prostitution.

These are the fellows who, for the most part, are ready to pay the highest price for the hire of their cabs. One swell-mobsman, I was told, had risen from ‘signing’ for cabs to become a cab proprietor, but was now a prisoner in France for picking pockets.

The worse class of cabmen which, as I have before said, are but a twelfth of the whole, live in Granby Street, St Andrew’s Place, and similar localities of the Waterloo Road; in Union Street, Pearl Row, &c., of the Borough Road; in Princes Street, and others, of the London Road; in some unpaved streets that stretch from the New Kent Road to Lock’s Fields; in the worst parts of Westminster, in the vicinity of Drury Lane, Whitechapel, and of Lisson Grove, and wherever low depravity flourishes. ‘To get on a cab,’ I was told, and that is the regular phrase, ‘is the ambition of more loose fellows than for anything else, as it’s reckoned both an idle life and an exciting one.’ Whetstone Park is full of cabmen, but not wholly of the fancy-man class. The better sort of cabmen usually reside in the neighbourhood of the cab-proprietors’ yards, which are in all directions. Some of the best of these men are, or rather have been mechanics, and have left a sedentary employment, which affected their health, for the open air of the cab business. Others of the best description have been connected with country inns, but the majority of them are London men.
They are most of them married, and bringing up families decently on earnings of from 15
s
. to 25
s
. a week. Some few of their wives work with their needles for the tailors.

Some of the cab-yards are situated in what were old inn-yards, or the stable-yards attached to great houses, when great houses flourished in parts of the town that are now accounted vulgar. One of those I saw in a very curious place. I was informed that the yard was once Oliver Cromwell’s stable-yard; it is now a receptacle for cabs. There are now two long ranges of wooden erections, black with age, each carriage-house opening with large folding-doors, fastened in front with padlocks, bolts, and hasps. In the old carriage-houses are the modern cabs, and mixed with them are superannuated cabs, and the disjointed or worn-out bodies and wheels of cabs. Above one range of the buildings, the red-tiled roofs of which project a yard and more beyond the exterior, are apartments occupied by the stable-keepers and others. Nasturtiums with their light green leaves and bright orange flowers were trained along light trellis-work in front of the windows, and presented a striking contrast to the dinginess around.

Of the cabdrivers there are several classes, according to the time at which they are employed. These are known in the trade by the names of the ‘long-day men’, ‘the morning-men’, the ‘long-night men’, and the ‘short-night men’, and ‘the bucks’. The long-day man is the driver who is supposed to be driving his cab the whole day. He usually fetches his cab out between 9 and 10 in the morning, and returns at 4 or 5, or even 7 or 8, the next morning; indeed it is no matter at what hour he comes in so long as he brings the money that he signs for; the long-day men are mostly employed for the contractors, though some of the respectable masters work their cabs with long-day men, but then they leave the yard between 8 and 9 and are expected to return between 12 and 1. These drivers when working for the contractors sign for 16
s
. a day in the season, as before stated, and 12
s
. out of the season; and when employed by the respectable masters, they are expected to bring home 14
s
. or 9
s
., according to the season of the year. The long-day men are the parties who mostly employ the ‘bucks’, or unlicensed drivers. They are mostly out with their cabs from 16 to 20 hours, so that their work becomes more than they can constantly endure, and they are consequently glad to avail themselves of the services of a buck for some hours at the end of the day, or rather night. The morning man generally goes out about 7 in the morning and returns to the yard at 6 in the evening. Those who contract sign to bring home from 10
s
. to 11
s
. per day in the season, and 7
s
. for the rest of the