Page:Omnibuses and Cabs.djvu/277

 cabmen's whips. Eventually it died peacefully of sheer weakness.

The year of this futile strike saw the passing of an Act which was badly needed. Although "bilking" has never been so common as it was in days of back-door cabs, there has always been a number of well-dressed rascals who make a point of swindling cabmen. Usually they alight at some big shop or institutions, telling the cab-driver that they will be out again in a few minutes and will want to be taken farther; then they enter the building and pass out by another door into a different street, leaving the cabman to discover that he has been "bilked." The "Bilking Act," as cabmen called the Act of 1896, made any person who hired a cab knowing that he could not pay the legal fare, or intending to avoid payment of it, liable to a fine of 40s., in addition to the fare, or to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding fourteen days. The whole or part of the fine could be given to the cabman as compensation.