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1"If the police have any business with the matter it ought to be with the masters who charge us so much, or with the
2fares that are fixed so low. If a man has to pay eighteen shillings a day for the use of a cab and two horses, as many
3of us have to do in the season, and must make that up before we earn a penny for ourselves I say 'tis more than hard
4work; nine shillings a day to get out of each horse before you begin to get your own living. You know that's true, and
5if the horses don't work we must starve, and I and my children have known what that is before now. I've six of 'em, and
6only one earns anything; I am on the stand fourteen or sixteen hours a day, and I haven't had a Sunday these ten or
7twelve weeks; you know Skinner never gives a day if he can help it, and if I don't work hard, tell me who does! I want a
8warm coat and a mackintosh, but with so many to feed how can a man get it? I had to pledge my clock a week ago to pay
9Skinner, and I shall never see it again." Some of the other drivers stood round nodding their heads and saying he was
10right. The man went on: "You that have your own horses and cabs, or drive for good masters, have a chance of getting on
11and a chance of doing right; I haven't. We can't charge more than sixpence a mile after the first, within the four-mile
12radius. This very morning I had to go a clear six miles and only took three shillings. I could not get a return fare,
13and had to come all the way back; there's twelve miles for the horse and three shillings for me. After that I had a
14three-mile fare, and there were bags and boxes enough to have brought in a good many twopences if they had been put
15outside; but you know how people do; all that could be piled up inside on the front seat were put in and three heavy
16boxes went on the top. That was sixpence, and the fare one and sixpence; then I got a return for a shilling. Now that
17makes eighteen miles for the horse and six shillings for me; there's three shillings still for that horse to earn and
18nine shillings for the afternoon horse before I touch a penny. Of course, it is not always so bad as that, but you know
19it often is, and I say 'tis a mockery to tell a man that he must not overwork his horse, for when a beast is downright
20tired there's nothing but the whip that will keep his legs a-going; you can't help yourself--you must put your wife and
21children before the horse; the masters must look to that, we can't. I don't ill-use my horse for the sake of it; none of
22you can say I do. There's wrong lays somewhere--never a day's rest, never a quiet hour with the wife and children. I
23often feel like an old man, though I'm only forty-five. You know how quick some of the gentry are to suspect us of
24cheating and overcharging; why, they stand with their purses in their hands counting it over to a penny and looking at
25us as if we were pickpockets. I wish some of 'em had got to sit on my box sixteen hours a day and get a living out of it
26and eighteen shillings beside, and that in all weathers; they would not be so uncommon particular never to give us a
27sixpence over or to cram all the luggage inside. Of course, some of 'em tip us pretty handsome now and then, or else we
28could not live; but you can't depend upon that." The men who stood round much approved this speech, and one of them
29said, "It is desperate hard, and if a man sometimes does what is wrong it is no wonder, and if he gets a dram too much
30who's to blow him up?" Jerry had taken no part in this conversation, but I never saw his face look so sad before. The
31governor had stood with both his hands in his pockets; now he took his handkerchief out of his hat and wiped his
32forehead. "You've beaten me, Sam," he said, "for it's all true, and I won't cast it up to you any more about the police;
33it was the look in that horse's eye that came over me. It is hard lines for man and it is hard lines for beast, and
34who's to mend it I don't know: but anyway you might tell the poor beast that you were sorry to take it out of him in
35that way. Sometimes a kind word is all we can give 'em, poor brutes, and 'tis wonderful what they do understand." A few
36mornings after this talk a new man came on the stand with Sam's cab. "Halloo!" said one, "what's up with Seedy Sam?"
37"He's ill in bed," said the man; "he was taken last night in the yard, and could scarcely crawl home. His wife sent a
38boy this morning to say his father was in a high fever and could not get out, so I'm here instead." The next morning the
39same man came again. "How is Sam?" inquired the governor. "He's gone," said the man. "What, gone? You don't mean to say
40he's dead?" "Just snuffed out," said the other; "he died at four o'clock this morning; all yesterday he was
41raving--raving about Skinner, and having no Sundays. 'I never had a Sunday's rest,' these were his last words." No one
42spoke for a while, and then the governor said, "I'll tell you what, mates, this is a warning for us." 40 Poor Ginger One
43day, while our cab and many others were waiting outside one of the parks where music was playing, a shabby old cab drove
44up beside ours. The horse was an old worn-out chestnut, with an ill-kept coat, and bones that showed plainly through it,
45the knees knuckled over, and the fore-legs were very unsteady. I had been eating some hay, and the wind rolled a little
46lock of it that way, and the poor creature put out her long thin neck and picked it up, and then turned and looked about
47for more. There was a hopeless look in the dull eye that I could not help noticing, and then, as I was thinking where I
48had seen that horse before, she looked full at me and said, "Black Beauty, is that you?" It was Ginger! but how changed!
49The beautifully arched and glossy neck was now straight, and lank, and fallen in; the clean straight legs and delicate
50fetlocks were swelled; the joints were grown out of shape with hard work; the face, that was once so full of spirit and
51life, was now full of suffering, and I could tell by the heaving of her sides, and her frequent cough, how bad her
52breath was. Our drivers were standing together a little way off, so I sidled up to her a step or two, that we might have
53a little quiet talk. It was a sad tale that she had to tell. After a twelvemonth's run off at Earlshall, she was
54considered to be fit for work again, and was sold to a gentleman. For a little while she got on very well, but after a
55longer gallop than usual the old strain returned, and after being rested and doctored she was again sold. In this way
56she changed hands several times, but always getting lower down. "And so at last," said she, "I was bought by a man who
57keeps a number of cabs and horses, and lets them out. You look well off, and I am glad of it, but I could not tell you
58what my life has been. When they found out my weakness they said I was not worth what they gave for me, and that I must
59go into one of the low cabs, and just be used up; that is what they are doing, whipping and working with never one
60thought of what I suffer--they paid for me, and must get it out of me, they say. The man who hires me now pays a deal of
61money to the owner every day, and so he has to get it out of me too; and so it's all the week round and round, with
62never a Sunday rest." I said, "You used to stand up for yourself if you were ill-used."
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