The Major was peculiarly unpopular amongst the hackney carriage drivers, and yet he was not a severe judge of their delinquencies, for he dismissed nearly half the complaints preferred before him, and the average of his fines was three shillings and sixpence; still, they hated him; and although he preached to them very many little sermons in the carriage court, and occasionally sought to impart Scriptural knowledge to their minds, the benighted "jarveys" detested the magisterial apostle. At last "the Major" died. His illness was very brief, and his indisposition commenced in a covered car. He drove home to the Lower Castle-yard, and never rallied, but sank in a few hours. The story was circulated that he actually died in a covered car; and for some time after his decease, I was occasionally treated to the hearing of complaints preferred by covered car-drivers against outside carmen, for usurping their turns, and defrauding them of their jobs. It was, and is, very unusual for carmen to summon members of their own body; but in the cases to which I refer there was a peculiar grossness assigned to the offence. "Yer worship," the plaintiff would exclaim, "I would not mind him _stumping me_, but he roared out to the people that were going to hire me that my car was the very one the owld Major died in, and yer worship, _I couldn't be expected to forgive that_." CHAPTER IX. COMMITTALS--A BARBER WANTED--DWYER THE REBEL--AN EXTRAORDINARY INQUEST--SERGEANT GREENE'S HORSE--CHRISTY HUGHES--THE POLICE CLERKS--RECORDER WALKER--THE POLICE STATUTES--PREAMBLE--A BENEFIT SOCIETY CASE--POLICE RECRUITS--A BORN SOLDIER.