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The auto-cab is the hansom's chief rival. Photo by Arthur Hewitt.

The hansom cab design had worked so well for horse cabs that at least two early auto makers tried to build motor cabs around it. This one is electric.

Source:
Outing magazine, vol. XLIX no. 2, November, 1906, p. 136.

Vance Thompson's Cab Drivers / 37

The New York Cab Driver and his Cab / 9

If you do not tip the driver when you get out, you are a trifle the better and he, apparently, is not much the worse. Moreover, the vehicles are smart and new, and the horses are good. No city can exhibit smarter public turn-outs. The best of it all is that these fast-faring, comfortable and cheap carriages are educating the public up to the proper use of the cab. Everything must have a beginning. Young Milo began by carrying a calf and in time walked lightly under the weight and bulk of a full-grown bull. The young man who begins timidly by cabbing it from the Grand Central Station – with trunk and bag atop – for seventy cents, will come, little by little, to displaying himself in the splendid isolation of a hansom on Fifth Avenue. A trifle later he will be 'phoning for a carriage from the jobber. In a few years he will not be content without a stable of his own.

Frankly, a great deal of nonsense gets itself said and printed about the advantages of economy. The best equipment a young man can have, starting out in life, is a bundle of wants. He should want to smoke good cigars; want to get his clothes made by the best tailor; want to dine at the best tables; want to flirt with the prettiest women; want to belong to the best club; want to have his turn at Monte Carlo and spin his yacht in the Adriatic; want, in a word, the best and most of everything. Give a young man all the needs possible. Let him acquire the habit of living largely. That young man will be no idler. He will find the wherewithal to satisfy his needs. He will get together the kind of fortune needed for his ample way of life. You say that he may fail to work out the equation? Then is he a yellow dog. By no chance could he have been any use to himself or society. He had best drop down and run in the common with the yellow-haired fellows of his breed.