This cab was patented by Mr. Chapman and Mr. Gillett, who financed him, in December, 1836. The company which owned Hansom’s cab purchased Messrs. Chapman and Gillett’s patent, and in a very short time placed fifty of the new cabs on the streets. From the first they were a great success, and for sixty-six years they have remained in public favour. The only important alteration made during those years was the introduction of the straight axle, which necessitated the cutting away of the body of the cab beneath the passenger’s seat. This improvement was made very soon after the first Chapman or Hansom appeared on the streets. The side windows of hansoms were, until the fifties, very small--about one foot by eight inches. [Illustration: FRANCIS MOORE’S VEHICLE.] Hansom’s cab, before being improved by Chapman, bore a strong resemblance to a vehicle of which there is an illustration in Pennant’s “London,” published in 1790. This vehicle is represented as having just passed under Temple Bar, on which are fixed the gruesome heads of traitors. Knight mentions, in his work on London, having seen a print, dated early in the nineteenth century, of a very similar conveyance, which was described as “the carriage of the ingenious Mr. Moore.” That the vehicle in Pennant was built by Francis Moore, of Cheapside, a well-known coachbuilder, there can be no doubt. The difficulty is to decide which conveyance the Pennant picture represents. The _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1771 contains the following paragraph:--“Oct. 30. One of Mr. Moore’s carts to carry the mail, upon a new construction, was drawn to the General Post Office. The wheels are eight feet eight inches high, and the body is hung in the same manner as his coal carts, covered with wood, and painted green; the driver is to sit on the top.” Moore patented a two-wheel carriage in June, 1786, and another in 1790. The specifications of the latter show that it was hung on two large wheels. The door, however, was at the back, and the driver had a separate seat at the front, but not on the top of the vehicle. It is very probable that Hansom saw Francis Moore’s carriages, and that the cab, which has made his name a household word, was an improvement upon the conveyance depicted in Pennant. Hansom’s original cabs, when not plying for hire, stood on premises which now form a part of the Baker Street Bazaar.