Click on the picture to see a larger version.
In Front of the Opera. Photo by V. Gribayédoff.

The dress code on this stand includes top hats, white breeches and knee boots.

Source:
Outing magazine, vol. XLIII no. 3, December, 1903, p. 252.

Vance Thompson's Cab Drivers / 13

The Paris Cabman / 12

"I will overpay him royally," said I; at the Porte Maillot I gave him a louis to change. Out of the twenty francs I gave him eight; the other twelve I put in my pocket – I might as well have thrown them into the street; they were false as his cherubic face. I fancy he had just made them out of pewter, and I am inclined to believe that he had begun by murdering his grandmother and stealing her pewter teapot. The poor old dame!

Upon the whole the Paris cab-system is a good one. The fares are reasonable: thirty cents by day for a drive anywhere within the city limits, and forty five cents by night, while by the hour the tariff is respectively forty and fifty cents. Moreover the cabman has to go, and in case of any dispute you have but to order him to drive to the nearest police-station. To be sure the horses might be better, the cabman might be more courtier like, and the cab upholstery might be redolent of a prettier odor than that of stale tobacco, faded kisses, and decayed humanity. But what can you expect? After all, thirty cents are thirty cents. I admit that I am a devotee of Saint Fiacre. Without the fiacre Paris will be but a mockery of its gay and foolish self. And the time will come when these lazy four-wheelers will be no more. On the surface the electric cabs are crowding them out. Little by little the amazed Parisian is letting himself be whisked through tubes underground. Tram and trolley and motor car are killing the fiacre. And so –psitt! psitt! cocher! – let us ride while we may. 'Tis the most precious privilege of a free man, for it gives him the momentary right to look down upon the poor devils who go afoot.

Hue, Cocotte!

[The End]