A strike--Cabmen’s revenge on Members of Parliament--Cab radius altered--Cabmen object to knocking at doors--The King of Cabmen--Nicknames--A lady feared by cabmen--The kilometric reckoner--Lord John Russell and “Palace Yard Jack”--Cab fares altered--A strike against the introduction of lamps--Another strike--The Cab-drivers’ Benevolent Association--The London Cabmen’s Mission--The Hackney Carriage Proprietors’ Provident Institution--The Cabmen’s Shelter Fund. The cabmen’s reputation for being extortionate is by no means of recent growth, but frequently men have been accused wrongfully. In 1853, a cabman was charged with demanding more than his legal fare, the complainant declaring that although the distance travelled was only three miles the defendant had charged as if it were five. Cabby was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment, but before his time expired a gentleman interested himself in his case, and paid to have the distance officially measured. It was seven miles! In the same year the Government imposed fresh regulations upon cabs, and the fares, which had been eightpence a mile, and fourpence for every additional half a mile, or portion of half a mile, were reduced to sixpence for every mile, and for any part of a mile over and above any number of miles completed. Mr. Thompson of Southampton Row, a proprietor in a large way of business, had introduced those fares two years previously. The new regulations and the reduction of fares created great indignation among both cab proprietors and cab drivers. The latter were particularly enraged with the Members of Parliament, and hit upon a way of expressing publicly their feelings towards them. When the House rose on the night of July 26, and the members hurried out to go home, they were astonished to see all the cabmen drive quickly away with empty cabs. Some of them ran after the cabs; but the drivers declined in most unparliamentary language to take them, and as many of the honourable gentlemen who could not get a lift in friends’ carriages had to walk home. The following morning there was not a cab to be seen in the streets of London, for the cabmen were on strike. Members of Parliament soon felt the want of cabs, and the Sergeant-at-Arms personally asked Mr. Gamble, an omnibus proprietor, to oblige them by running an omnibus for their sole convenience between the House and the clubs. But Mr. Gamble, who was also a cab proprietor, and not just then very well disposed towards Members of Parliament, declined to accede to their request. The strike, however, only lasted for four days, for when the men saw that the police permitted unlicensed vehicles to ply for hire they returned to work. Nevertheless, they gained something by the strike, for their grievances were investigated without delay, and the following alterations made. The cab radius, which for twenty-four years had been three miles from the General Post Office, was changed to four miles from the statue of Charles I.