St. Landry democrat., 1884-10-25
The Hanson Cab.

y
met in saloon for lunch at midday.
1.-THE streets are full of them, and they
make me laugh.
what kind of things are they?"
asked the second old kicker. II have
read about Hanson cabs ever since
was boy. in Dickens works, and all
English publications, but | wouldn't
know one if l saw it in the road. What
do they look like? I"
go, they look like the very deuce.
Take your top buggy and knock off the
front wheels, and hitch the shafts on the
hind axle-tree, and put an oIfice-stool
up behind the top of the buggy, with q
driver screwed onto the top of the stool,
with the lines running over the top to
the horse, and YOU would have Ham
SOM cab. looked at lots of them, and
honestly, / couldn't help laughing at
the imitation English affairs. Those
Gurneys that have been on the streets
Of Chicago for year or two are bad
enough about shaking a fellow up, but
the Hanson cab will dislocate a mans
liver. and shiver his spinal column, and
scare him to death quicker than any
thing. You get in and there is a couple
of doors shut in on your lap to keep
you from being shaken out. and then
the driver locks the doors and throws the
key away, and when you get to the end
of your journey somebody happens along
with another key and lets you out, or
may be the doors are locked with q
time-lock that opens when you get to
the depot. The driver sits up behind, as
stiff as frozen pickerel. and was told
by Palmer House liar that an
iron rod runs from the seat right up the
spinal column of the driver, to the top
OF his head, where his hat, which has
an iron nut on the inside, screws on to
the rod and holds him tight. He looks
as though that was TIE way he was
fastened on, but the fellow may have
been lying to me. The horse seems to
| know where you are going, and all the
driver does is to hold on to the lines.
/ suppose he is up there so if the horse
runs away the driver could get of
without being run over, and go around
a block and stop the horse. In the
meantime passenger would be killed.
To ride along the crowded streets in one
of the Hanson cabs, and see the horse
going through the crowds with no
driver in sight, makes you have respect
for the sagacity of the horse, and yet
! you feel as though even horse sense was
not enough, and you are sure that he
will run into the next beer wagon that
comes along. Yon forget all about the
galvanized Englishman perched upon
the shelf behind, and you feel like grab
bing the lines that pass over your head
and driving the horse yourself, and
when you stop to get out, and the
driver appears to open the door, you
look at him in establishment, and say:
s,Well, how did you get here, for
Heavens sake?" When the cab strikes
a rough place in the street with the
right wheel, your thigh bone goes right
up and knocks your ear around on top
of your head, and you feel lop-sided
until the left wheel strikes something
and averages you up. When both
wheels strike an obstruction at once,
the bottom of your stomach is struck
by your boot-heels and paralyzed, so
you can't eat anything but soup for q
week, and your liver is Just as liable to
be around bV the small of your back,
or under your arm, as anywhere, when
Won get to the depot. Its a lonesome,
melancholy feeling, to ride in Han
som cab. In any other conveyance
you can hail the driver and talk with
him, but to make the driver of Han
som cab hear YOU, You have to shout
against the side of building, and de-
pend upon the echo coming back to the
driver and waking him up. tt might
seem as though a Hanson cab would
be good thing for a young fellow to
take his girl out riding in, if he wanted
to spark her, the driver being away
back behind and binders on the horse,
but it wouldn't be safe, as the driver
has hole in the back of the top SO he
can look right through, and he would
BE- sure to Keep awake if there was any,
thing gong on In the cab that the pas
sengers didn't care to have commented
on: besides. it seems as though the
weight OF the vehicle was liable at any
minute to raise the horse right off his
feet and cause him to sit down in your
lap, and no fellow riding with a girl
likes to have horse sit down in their
laps, when they become interested in a
conversation. The Hanson cab looks
sort of tony, but man who rides in
one feels as though he was marked.
Every looks at the rig and laughs,
and the passenger feels uncomfortable.
These cabs can never take the place of
street cars, that is sure and the old
kicker, who had rode in cab the day
before, began feeling under his shoul-
der blade, to see if the calves Of his
legs were not beginning to work back
where they belonged. = Peck's Sun.
$3.50 -s-----
The ship comes in.
For years we have waiteds
lnhope and IN glee,