Many aristocratic, military and professional men have at various times driven a cab for a livelihood, and usually they have been reduced to that strait through their own folly; but there have been cases of young, well-educated men driving cabs for a period until their prospects in life brightened. Only seven or eight years ago a student at one of our great London hospitals passed his “final,” and found himself in the painful position of being a qualified medical man without any money. Unable to obtain a _locum tenens_ or an assistantship, he applied for and received a cabman’s licence. Medical students and their friends made a point of patronising him, and for some months “the doctor” was one of the best-known cabmen in the West End. He has now a very good provincial practice, but the money with which he purchased the nucleus of it was not earned as a cabman. This “doctor” is not the cabman referred to in Chapter IV. The latter, who has been a driver for twenty-one years, is an old man. An ex-cabman who is well known to many hundreds of Londoners is John Cockram. He was born, in 1833, in French-horn Yard, Holborn, his father being a cab proprietor in a small way of business. Cockram, senior, died early in the forties, leaving a widow and four children totally unprovided for. Moreover, he was deeply in debt to a horse dealer, who speedily caused the stock-in-trade and household furniture to be seized and sold. All that was left to the widow was a bed, a Prayer-book, a Bible, and a watch which had been presented to her by the physician to George IV., in whose service she had been prior to her marriage. Young Cockram, although but eleven years of age, became the main support of his mother, and a few years later she was entirely dependent upon him. [Illustration: JOHN COCKRAM.] In 1851 John Cockram became a cab-driver, but as he objected on religious grounds to Sunday work, it was his ambition to possess a cab of his own. Having saved £20, he purchased a horse, hired a cab, and started business on his own account; but, as he followed Mr. Thompson’s example and accepted sixpenny fares, he became unpopular with cabmen, and a complaint was made to Sir Richard Mayne, the Chief Commissioner of Police, that he was driving a cab while under age. But when Sir Richard Mayne discovered that Cockram was the sole support of his mother, and, moreover, thoroughly qualified for a cab-driver in every respect, except age, he declined to prohibit him from driving. However, there was trouble in store for Cockram. He had been a proprietor for a very short time when his horse bolted, and the cab was smashed. Again Cockram had to drive for a master, but this time he refused to drive on Sundays.