THE MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19258, 20 December 1930, Page 9

THE MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB.

A strange survival IN CHRISTCHURCH. (By Stranger.) The first time I saw the yellow hansom cab I stood still; it seemed too good to be true. Possibly there would also be a sedan chair or two, plying for hire. The last time I rode in what Disraeli called “the gondola of London” was away back in the nineteen hundreds, and here -was one tooling down High Street in 1930. And its hue of old gold conjured up suggestions of Cinderella’s coach. Then there was the added distinction of the name “Carbine” painted on each side. Such a name, of course, was merely chosen as a tribute to a great horse, and no similarity in speed was intended. The hansom cab horse has a pace that is unique; strict observance of the “Walk round corners” injunction has left its indelible mark. He is rather like the circus horse. At the exciting moment of the dash through the burning hoop the ring-master redoubles his whip-cracking, thq band plays fortissimo, and there is a general air of whirlwind speed, but the well-tutored horse ambles round at his one set pace, and the suggestion of a wild gallop is merely a figment. The yellow hansom drew up at the kerb. The man perched up aloft behind released the cord thftt let down the one-legged rest under the cab, and the horse leaned back in the breeching, rather like an old gentleman sinking cosily into his armchair beside the fire. Did anyone still ride in this relic from the dear old Victorian days? Evidently. A countryman came along a quarter of an hour later, parleyed with the man on the box, got in, the doors were swung to (by another cord worked by the “god in the machine”), the horse looked round in a ridiculously human manner, and when the one-leg-ged rest was hoisted up the cab swayed back on an even keel, and moved off silently on its rubber-tyred wheels, the “clip, clop” of the horse’s hoofs on the asphalt making music seldom heard today outside the “talkies.” The yellow cab was too fascinating, so one day I decided to charter it and take a run back into the 'nineties. I hailed the man up aloft, stepped in the doors, closed by the mysterious hand, shut out 1930, I winked at the steed as he turned round to observe the embarkation, and off we went. The old horse jogged along at his regulation pace. Occasionally a crack of the whip threw Rosinante into momentary trepidation, and he heaved himself into the air several times, but quickly settled down to his seven-miles-an-hour gait most complacently—the whole thing was taken for granted. But one would not have had him accelerate for worlds. They say Chesterton was the last man in England to cling to the hansom —perhaps one should say fill a hansom—and his preference is easily understood; it fits in so well with his worship of mediaeval times and the leisurely times when men drank beer. Motors flashed by like express trains, everything on wheels passed us, but what matter? We were bound for the enchanted 'nineties, and that is a road that is not on the motorists’ map. The end came all too soon. I suddenly remembered the little trap-door in the roof by which one communicated with the man on the box. Pushing it up with my umbrella, I called out the stopping-place, the neddy made a grand sweep in to the kerb, just like the captain’s gig coming alongside the gangway, the magic doors opened like the door of robber’s cave in “Ali Baba,” I alighted, and was so charmed with the little excursion into the long ago that I forgot the depression and gave the driver an 1890 tip, and so the drive had been a pleasant one for both of us. Let us hope that a few more folk with a liking for the 'nineties will happen along occasionally, for the yellow hansom cab, and its friend in the conventional black, which stands near the fountain, are two things that Christchurch should not part with until, like Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous “one hoss shay,” they disintegrate through sheer old age.