A little bit of pleasant comedy is found in a recent speech of his at the dinner of the Cabdrivers’ Benevolent Association in June last. He had always a friendly feeling for this hard-worked body of men, as he told his audience autobiographically: “I have spent a great part of my life in cabs. There was a time, indeed, when a hansom, by a slight stretch of the picturesque, might have been described as my address. That was in the days of youth and high spirits. But there comes a moment in the experience of all of us when the taste for adventure is satiated, when we are no longer eager to sit under the charioteer of the sun, and snatch a fearful joy from sharp corners and a sudden congestion of the traffic. So when the decisive moment came for me I dropped the hansom and took up with the growler. I remember that my first appearance in that staid and unambitious vehicle excited a certain amount of feeling amongst my old friends the hansom cabmen. There were letters of remonstrance. One correspondent, as genial a humorist as Gentleman Joe, hinted that to be seen in a growler was equivalent to being dead, and I think he offered to paint my epitaph on the back. I must say that I am very comfortable in a growler, except when the bottom drops out almost as suddenly as if it were a gold mine. That accident once happened to a friend of mine whose professional business compelled him to make a quick change of dress in the cab, and as it was a light summer evening the passers-by were astonished to see a pair of white legs running under the vehicle, and not apparently connected with the horse.”
Again a pleasant sketch: “Taking them as a body, the cabmen are as industrious and deserving a class as you can find in the community. There still lingers amongst them, perhaps, some of the old spirit which prompted the cabmen to expostulate rather forcibly with Mr. Pickwick. And considering the vast area in which these public servants have to work, and the elasticity of the four-mile radius in the minds of some citizens, the friction is surprisingly small. Not a few of us have known cabmen whom we held in special regard. There was one affable driver that I invited to the Lyceum, giving him the money for admission. The next time I saw him I said, ‘Well, and how did you like the play?’ He hesitated for a moment, choosing, as I thought, the most grateful words to express his pleasure and admiration, and then he said, ‘Well, sir, I didn’t go.’ ‘You didn’t go! Why not?’ ‘Well, sir, you see, there’s the missus, and she preferred the Waxworks.’
