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A Paris Cab Stable. Photo by V. Gribayédoff.

Most cab drivers rented their cabs from such stables. Drivers learned to tip the hostlers and cab washers if they wanted a fresh horse and a clean cab.

Source:
Outing magazine, vol. XLIII no. 3, December, 1903, p. 251.

Vance Thompson's Cab Drivers / 12

The Paris Cabman / 11

There is one class of cabs of which I have not spoken. It is the cab o' night – the cab of roysterers, night folk, drunkards and bad husbands. It emerges from dark alleyways and gloomy courtyards at the hour when only noctambulists are abroad. It may have been, once upon a time, a coupé of good family; now it is rusty, broken, foul and tattered, and a lean and wretched horse draws it and a debased old man drives it. From two to six in the morning it crawls through the naked streets. Bad husbands sight it from afar. Horse, cab and driver would be a dear bargain at twenty dollars. Fortunately the ornate club cabs are driving them off the street and out of business.

And here let me place my story of the club cab – the one we took to Neuilly and the Fair thereof. It is not so good as the story of the grouse in the gunroom – which is the best story in the world – but it will serve. Having to take three ladies to the Fair of Neuilly, I installed their magnificence in a voiture de luxe*. The cocher was a young fellow with down on his upper lip. Youth and innocence were his, as once, perhaps, they were yours and mine.

Well – we rode through the Champs Elysées and down the avenue de la Grande Armée, by the Porte Maillot. The moon rode with us overhead. It was a summer moon, white and round as the head of a hydrocephalic child.

Neuilly – the avenue triumphant with electric lights. Under the luminous arches stretched a double hedge of theaters, circuses, shooting galleries, freak shows, merry-go-rounds decorated with breathless petticoated girls, wild-beast shows, wrestlers, puppet booths, gingerbread stalls; all the gayeties of the Fair. We drove slowly, eyeing the wonders. The ladies, gloating sentimentalists, would not visit the Theater of Educated Fleas – not caring for high art – so I went alone. Upon my return they said in chorus, "Oh, this cocher is such an interesting young man and quite a superior person. Driving a cab is quite beneath him. He has just started in and he is very innocent and fresh. Think! This afternoon he drove a fare round for five hours and then the wretch went into the 'Bon Marché'* and never came back – escaped by another door and bilked the poor cabman. Think! Five hours! Wasn't it shocking? I do hope you will give him a good tip. The poor young man!" said the gloating sentimentalists.