Page:Omnibuses and Cabs.djvu/234

 fitted and splendidly horsed cab. The result of his first morning's work was very satisfactory, and the young cabman was in high spirits. But driving to the stables, his horse stumbled and fell, and, taken by surprise, the unfortunate young cabman was pitched head-first into the road, and killed on the spot.

But the driver's unsafe seat was not the only weak point about the back-door cab. The facilities it offered for alighting without paying, soon made "bilking" a popular amusement with a certain class of people.

A somewhat rackety young peer proved, for a wager, how easy it was to "bilk" a cabman. He hailed a cab outside his club and told the cabby to drive him to a certain address at Hammersmith.