Some of them in the
presence of a title give such imitations of being slaves as might
fool even so experienced a judge as the late Simon Legree; and
- as perchance you may also have heard - an Englishman's souse is
his castle. So in due state they ride him and his turreted souse
to the station house in a perambulator.
From midnight to daylight the taxicabs by the countless swarm will
be charging about in every direction - charging, moreover, at the
rate of eight pence a mile. Think that over, ye taxitaxed wretches
of New York, and rend your garments, with lamentations loud! There
is this also to be said of the London taxi service - and to an
American it is one of the abiding marvels of the place - that, no
matter where you go, no matter how late the hour or how outlying
and obscure the district, there is always a trim taxicab just round
the next corner waiting to come instantly at your whistle, and
with it a beggar with a bleak, hopeless face, to open the cab door
for you and stand, hat in hand, for the penny you toss him.
In the main centers, such as Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus
and Charing Cross, and along the Embankment, the Strand and Pall
Mall, they are as thick as fleas on the Missouri houn' dawg famous
in song and story - the taxis, I mean, though the beggars are
reasonably thick also - and they hop like fleas, bearing you swiftly
and surely and cheaply on your way. The meters are honest, openfaced
meters; and the drivers ask no more than their legal fares and are
satisfied with tips within reason. Here in America we have the
kindred arts of taxidermy and taxicabbery; one of these is the art
of skinning animals and the other is the art of skinning people.
The ruthless taxirobber of New York would not last half an hour
in London; for him the jail doors would yawn.
Oldtime Londoners deplored the coming of the taxicab and the
motorbus, for their coming meant the entire extinction of the
driver of the horse-drawn bus, who was an institution, and the
practical extinction of the hansom cabby, who was a type and very
frequently a humorist too. But an American finds no fault with
the present arrangement; he is amply satisfied with it.
Personally I can think of no more exciting phase of the night life
of the two greatest cities of Europe than the stunt of dodging
taxicabs. In London the peril that lurks for you at every turning
is not the result of carelessness on the part of the drivers; it
is due to the rules of the road. Afoot, an Englishman meeting you
on the sidewalk turns, as we do, to the right hand; but mounted
he turns to the left. The foot passenger's prerogative of turning
to the right was one of the priceless heritages wrested from King
John by the barons at Runnymede; but when William the Conqueror
rode into the Battle of Hastings he rode a left-handed horse - and
so, very naturally and very properly, everything on hoof or wheel
in England has consistently turned to the left ever since. I took
some pains to look up the original precedents for these facts and
to establish them historically.
The system suits the English mind, but it is highly confusing to
an American who gets into the swirl of traffic at a crossing - and
every London crossing is a swirl of traffic most of the time - and
looks left when he should look right, and looks right when he
should be looking left until the very best he can expect, if he
survive at all, is cross-eyes and nervous prostration.
I lost count of the number of close calls from utter and mussy
destruction I had while in London. Sometimes a policeman took
pity on me and saved me, and again, by quick and frenzied leaping,
I saved myself; but then the London cabmen were poor marksmen at
best. In front of the Savoy one night the same cabman in rapid
succession had two beautiful shots at me and each time missed the
bull's-eye by a disqualifying margin of inches. A New York chauffeur
who had failed to splatter me all over the vicinage at the first
chance would have been ashamed to go home afterward and look his
innocent little ones in the face.
Even now I cannot decide in my own mind which is the more fearsome
and perilous thing - to be afoot in Paris at the mercy of all the
maniacs who drive French motor cars or to be in one of the motor
cars at the mercy of one of the maniacs. Motoring in Paris is the
most dangerous sport known - just as dueling is the safest. There
are some arguments to be advanced in favor of dueling. It provides
copy for the papers and harmless excitement for the participants
- and it certainly gives them a chance to get a little fresh air
occasionally, but with motoring it is different. In Paris there
are no rules of the road except just these two - the pedestrian who
gets run over is liable to prosecution, and all motor cars must
travel at top speed.
If I live to be a million I shall never get over shuddering as I
think back to a taxicab ride I had in the rush hour one afternoon
over a route that extended from away down near the site of the
Bastille to a hotel away up near the Place Vendome.
