must starve, and I and my children have known what that is before now.
I've six of 'em, and only one earns anything; I am on the stand fourteen
or sixteen hours a day, and I haven't had a Sunday these ten or twelve
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 warm 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 Skinner, and I shall never see it again.
Some of the other drivers stood round nodding their heads and saying he
was right. The man went on:
You that have your own horses and cabs, or drive for good masters, have
a chance of getting on and a chance of doing right; I haven't. We can't
charge more than sixpence a mile after the first, within the four-mile
radius. This very morning I had to go a clear six miles and only took
three shillings. I could not get a return fare, and had to come all the
way back; there's twelve miles for the horse and three shillings for me.
After that I had a three-mile fare, and there were bags and boxes enough
to have brought in a good many twopences if they had been put outside;
but you know how people do; all that could be piled up inside on the
front seat were put in and three heavy boxes went on the top. That
was sixpence, and the fare one and sixpence; then I got a return for a
shilling. Now that makes eighteen miles for the horse and six shillings
for me; there's three shillings still for that horse to earn and nine
shillings for the afternoon horse before I touch a penny. Of course, it
is not always so bad as that, but you know it 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 tired there's nothing but the whip that will keep
his legs a-going; you can't help yourself--you must put your wife and
children 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 you can say I do.
There's wrong lays somewhere--never a day's rest, never a quiet hour
with the wife and children. I often feel like an old man, though I'm
only forty-five. You know how quick some of the gentry are to suspect us
of cheating and overcharging; why, they stand with their purses in
their hands counting it over to a penny and looking at us 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 and eighteen shillings beside, and that
in all weathers; they would not be so uncommon particular never to give
us a sixpence over or to cram all the luggage inside. Of course, some of
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