HC Deb 03 June 1808 vol 11 c811

Mr. Huskisson moved for leave to bring in a bill for the better regulations of the fares of Hackney Coaches. According to a former act it was provided, that when the price of oats was above one guinea a quarter, an increase of 20 per cent, should take place on hackney coach fares in some cases, and 30 per cent, in others. The price of oats had of late years been almost uniformly above one guinea a quarter; but the uncertainty of the calculation of the advance on all fares, had given rise to great abuses, without providing sufficiently for the interest of the coach-owner. In order to guard against these abuses in future, and to give the coach-master a fair and certain profit, he proposed to introduce fixed regulations in the present bill. It was also meant to include a provision to guard against the practice now very prevalent, and very injurious to hackney coachmen, of stage coaches belonging to the villages near town, taking up passengers in one part of the town, and setting them down in another, within the proper and exclusive limits of the hackney coachmen.—Leave was given to bring in the bill.