The Paris Cabby.

Hastings Standard, Issue 3, 29 April 1896, Page 4

The Paris Cabby.

Should an accident befall the vehicle of a Paris cabman during your occupancy, he will abandon himself to a paroxysm of grief, compute the loss, and tell in moving accents of his wife and children, whose bread will be taken from their mouths by this mishap. But if your fingers thereupon make instinctively for your pocket, restrain them ; he is insured. He pays a small monthly premium to a cab insurance company ; and in the case of a smashup only the company suffers. A playful intimation that you are aware of this circumstance will do wonders to console him. There was. in days gone by, a cabman who made such a good thing out of accidents that he ended by adopting them as a speciality. He confined his labours to those quarters of the town chiefly affected by the English, and his system was to pick up a benevolent English tourist (by preference a lady) and break a shaft. He knew a method of turning a corner which no shaft could resist. Then he would beat his breast, and shake his fist at heaven; call the universe to witness that he was a poor man, who would be ruined by the sum it must cost to get his cab repaired, bring in his wife and children, though the unprincipled creature was a bachelor —and what could a bene-volent-looking English tourist do but help him out ?