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| A hack rolls along 5th Avenue in 1881 (detail of a photo held by the New York Public Library). |
From Glimpses of Gotham, by Samuel MacKeever, 1880:
I know a very nice fellow who drives a
hack for a living. It is his own vehicle, and he naturally takes a
pride in it, as he does in his horses, which are always neatly
groomed.
It is his own choice that he works at
night instead of daytime. He is something of a student of human
character like myself, and he avers that the pursuit of the
occupation is much more entertaining at night than in the garish,
vulgar day.
And then again he makes more. There is
always some eccentricity about people who take carriages after
midnight, which is just as apt to find expression in a liberal system
of payment as in any other manner.
I must be very careful to explain that
my hackman, with whom I have just had a long talk, must not be
confounded with those disreputable fellows who stand in with
burglars. He is an honest whip, and during all the time that I have
known and hired him I have detected nothing wrong in his character. I
first made his acquaintance when there was an all-night eating and
drinking saloon in the basement at Clinton place and Broadway. His
hack stood outside.
He knows all about the disreputable
members of his fraternity, however, and has told me many a story of
their collusion with thieves. The burglar has frequently escaped
owing to a hack being in a dark alley ready for him to jump into and
bid defiance to the pursuing police.
There was a case about two years ago
where a robber got away successfully with his swag owing to fleet
horses, and amused himself furthermore by firing a revolver through
the back window at the policemen.
The Jehu of my acquaintance haunts the
railroad ferries, and generally gets a fare. One of the most
mysterious that he ever had he picked up at Desbrosses street at 4
o'clock in the morning. She was a young girl from Philadelphia who
took his carriage and told him to drive anywhere until daybreak. She
had no baggage.
" ' But it is cold and damp, Miss.
Had you not better stop at a hotel, or with some friends?' I asked
her.
" She looked at me sadly—my eye,
but she was pretty—and said: “ I have no friends. Drive till the
sun rises. I will pay you.'
" So I did. I remember that it was
down near the Battery I had gotten to by sunup. It was a Spring
morning and the birds were singing, while the waves in the bay had
just begun to glisten. I got down and looked in. She was dead! stone
dead, with the revolver still in her hand and a purplish hole in her
temple. She had so arranged a shawl and her handkerchief that the
blood had not soiled my carriage a bit If it had I would not have
been ruined, for she had pinned a $50 note to the lace of the coach,
with a penciled line on a piece of paper, saying it was for me."
" And what did you do ?"
" I drove her to the Morgue,
wondering all the while how I never heard the report of the revolver.
She must have done it during the clatter made by some market wagons
from Long Island that I got mixed up with. After leaving the body I
informed the police. Nothing was found upon her, and the chief of
police in Philadelphia could get no trace. They buried her up the
river."
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| New York City hacks wait in front of a 5th Avenue hotel in the 1880s (detail of a photo held by the New York Public Library). |
Cabby tells curious tales about the
balls at the Academy. He says that he is frequently told by the
gentleman, after the lady is assisted into the vehicle, to drive up
to Central Park at a walk. He has then been requested to drive to
High Bridge, or anywhere else. Sometimes on these occasions the most
violent scenes take place, and one night the woman screamed to him
for assistance. It was at a lonely place on the Kingsbridge road, and
about 3 AM. He halted his horses, jumped down and opened the door; the
young woman, who was costumed as a page beneath a pink domino and
mask, springing out almost into his arms, begging him to protect her.
" That I certainly would. I then
asked what was the matter, but got no satisfaction. She cried and he
laughed. It was easy to surmise, however. I ordered him from the
carriage, and then put her back, she telling me where to go. I left
him standing in the road in his full dress suit, calmly smoking a
cigarette ! The lady lived in a swell house near the Windsor. She
made me come around the next day and gave me $10, although I had been
paid for the night's work by the Lothario in the dress suit."
" Have you never gotten in trouble
about these mysterious night fares?"
" Once only. A young man picked me
up on Broadway and took me way over to Hoboken. We stopped at a house
from which a young woman, all muffled up, and so weak that she had to
be carried, was brought out. I suspected something wrong then, but I
was younger than I am now and the night was wasted, and I resolved to
stick it out. They had me drive to a place in Grand street—a
disreputable-looking house, with a light burning in the second-story
window. I got a glimpse of the young woman's face as the young man
and an old lady helped her out. It was pale as death. She turned her
head, and seemed to look right at me as if asking for aid. An old
wretch in a skull-cap came to the door with a lamp.
" It was an abortion case, of
course. The girl died, and when they advertised for the hackman I
drove down and gave myself up. I believe that the old man got ten
years. The young one jumped the town, and I never heard of his being
caught."
He told me a great many more curious
things; how an old gray-bearded man took him at Courtlandt street
ferry once, and it was a young, smooth-faced fellow who got out at
the Grand Central Depot, where he had been told to go.
On another occasion a veiled lady,
carrying a baby, hired him to catch the midnight Washington express.
He caught it, but when he opened the door the woman was missing, and
the baby, tucked up in a corner, was all that remained. He turned it
over to the police. The woman must have jumped out while he was going
at full speed. In the case of the old man, my cabby thinks he was a
criminal, fleeing from justice, who used the cab as a dressing-room
in which to remove his disguise.
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