§ The House went into Committee on the Public Càrriages (Metropolis) Bill.
§ On the 17th Clause,
§ Mr. Wakleywished to be informed why the drivers of gentlemen's carriages were not to be ticketed and numbered as well as the drivers of public carriages, [Alderman Wood, "oh, oh!"] The worthy Alderman might say "oh!" but the saying "oh!" did not make the distinction less partial or unjust towards the public. He had seen at late hours of the night infinitely worse conduct on the part of gentlemen's coachmen than he had ever witnessed on the part of drivers of omnibusses, hackney-coaches, or any others to whom the Bill applied. This was, in fact, what was too often the case, a legislation which only served to restrict and bear upon the poorer classes, while the rich were suffered to do as they pleased. This was an Act which purported to be for the public benefit, and to effect such an object the drivers of gentlemen's carriages should be made amenable to its provisions.
§ Sir Samuel Whalleysaid, that the carriages to which this Bill applied were carriages let out for hire, which circumstance constituted an essential distinction between them and gentlemen's carriages.
§ Dr. Bowringthought that there was much justice in what had fallen from the hon. Member for Finsbury. He should support his hon. Friend if he moved an Amendment on the subject.
Mr. Alderman Woodwould yield to no one in the House in a desire to protect the interests of the poor equally with those of the rich, and the present Bill had for its object the benefit of ths whole public, rich or poor. He must, however, object to inserting the proposition of the hon. Member for Finsbury in the present Bill, the preamble to which expressly described it as one intended to refer only to public carriages. If the hon. Member chose at a future period to introduce a separate Bill to promote his object he would not oppose it.
§ Mr. Wakleycould not see why the worthy Alderman should object to effect the object by at once inserting a Clause in the Bill for the purpose. The object of the Bill was to preserve the public from 257 the effects of furious driving, and this object would not be effectually attained unless the drivers of gentlemen's carriages were subjected to the same penalties with those of public carriage drivers. If this Bill were passed without such a Clause he (Mr. Wakley) should most certainly bring forward a measure in reference to private carriages early next Session.
§ Colonel Sibthorpwished to observe that the penalties imposed by the Bill, so far from being too high, were too slight to be efficient.
§ Mr. Warburtonobjected to this system of legislating against grievances so slight as to render it perfectly competent in the public itself to remedy them. As to the present measure, if it passed, his Majesty's subjects would not be any the more acquainted with the law on the subject from a measure, containing, as it did, not fewer than eighty long Clauses.
Mr. Alderman Woodsaid, the necessity for this longer Bill had been partly thrown upon him by the hon. Member's opposition to the short measure of three Clauses, which he had originally proposed, and which threw the task of making bye-laws on the subject of public carriages on the Court of Aldermen. This Bill was imperatively necessary for the protection of the poor, and to provide them a remedy in cases where they were run over and wounded, and had their limbs broken by public conveyances. At the present moment there were not fewer than fifty cases of this kind in Charing-cross Hospital.
§ Colonel Sibthorpdared to say, that he was the oldest four-in-hander in the House; yet in the whole course of his practice not a single accident had been caused by him. If there had, he should, of course, have made the best recompence in his power.
§ Mr. Wakleysaid, this only shewed that the gallant Colonel must have been peculiarly fortunate in his charioteering; for there was no doubt but that a great many dreadful accidents were caused by private carriages as well as by public ones. Would the gallant Colonel have any objection to the numbering of gentlemen's carriages?
§ Colonel Sibthorpmost certainly.
§ Mr. Potterprotested against the violent abuse which Members so indiscriminately bestowed upon the drivers of public conveyances. For his own part, the instances were very rare indeed in which he had experienced insolence on their part.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ On Clause 34,
258§ Mr. Wakleyprotested against it as a most unjust and absurd one, going as it did to debar the driver of a cab, under the penalty of twenty shillings, from sitting in the passengers' seat, even though no passenger occupied it.
§ Colonel Sibthorplooked upon this as one of the best provisions in the Bill, prohibiting, as it also did, the cabman from occupying the passengers' seat with some drunken, greasy, dirty fellow.
§ Mr. Wakley,on the contrary, thought the Clause a most tyrannical and preposterous one. It was monstrous that a man sitting from eight in the morning till a late hour of the winter night, should be forbidden to shelter himself from the cold and snow and rain in his own property.
§ Mr. Ewarttook the same view as the hon. Member for Finsbury, and proposed as an Amendment that the driver when driving without passengers might sit within his cab.
§ On this Amendment the Committee divided.
§ Ayes 5; Noes 32; Majority 27.
§ House resumed. Committee to sit again.