cabmen, and has earned for them a notoriety which will take many years to live down. Women can travel in London by train, tram, omnibus and boat without fear of extortion and incivility, but they know from bitter experience, that every time they hire a cab they are running a risk of being cheated and afterwards abused for daring to utter a protest. Women, therefore were naturally very pleased when they heard of the new check, but their joy was short-lived, for the Cab-drivers' Union interfered, and declared that any man who drove a taxameter cab was a "black-leg." The reasons given for this decision were by no means satisfactory, and the only conclusion that an unbiassed person can arrive at is, that the majority of cabmen, in spite of constant complaints about their difficulty of earning a living, made, partly by overcharging, considerably more than the £2 2s. a-week and percentage of earnings offered by the Taxameter Syndicate. As the drivers would not take out taxameter cabs, the proprietors were compelled to remove the register from them. But the taxameter is far too useful an innovation to be suppressed at the word of the Cab-drivers' Union. The public must remember
