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But he keeps his top hat well brushed. Photo by Arthur Hewitt.

In New York as in Paris, the top hat seems to have been a badge of the cab driving trade.

Source:
Outing magazine, vol. XLIX no. 2, November, 1906, p. 134.

Vance Thompson's Cab Drivers / 34

The New York Cab Driver and his Cab / 6

Said Flynn – there was a pleasant evening light in First Avenue; 'tis a broad and spacious street, lined with smart little shops and homey tenements; then it was so blithe with Italiany children that one might be content to settle down there and make friends; across the street from the doorway in which we stood was Flynn's stable, where a hairy old man, who would be the better for more teeth, was washing a hansom. Flynn, with an owner's eye, watched the operation.

"I have been twenty years at the craft," he said with a quiet sort of pride.

Do you remember the rat-catcher in "Lavengro," who maintained that his craft was immeasurably superior to any other? He had the right kind of pride. The man who doesn't think his business is the best in the world has no right to be in it – whether it be spilling the gaunt pothooks of literature on virginal white paper or blowing uppommes de terre soufflées through a straw. So, being proud of it, Flynn told me of the efforts he and a few others have been making to clean up the cab business. These men are they who own their cabs and horses. They have an association – that of The Public Hack and Cab Drivers. With great diligence they have been trying to get the city officials to enforce the laws – with no great success; on every cab-rank and hack-stand unlicensed vehicles jostle them. They have gone to the Board of Aldermen and asked for the enactment of sterner ordinances. They have urged the Merchants' Association to assist them in reforming the abuses of the business. And in one place as in another they have got about as much sympathy as reformers usually get. They have been at the police and the aldermen and the mayor's marshall in an attempt to get the rogues winnowed out of the fraternity of drivers; with what success you may imagine.