THE FIRST CAB-STANDS. 195 



entered into competition with the hackney-carriages ; 

 they were owned in that year by Sir Sanders Duncomb. 

 In the following year an attempt was made to check 

 the increasing annoyance occasioned by the general and 

 promiscuous use of hackney-coaches by a proclamation 

 from the King, Charles L, that no hackney or hired 

 coach should be used in London, Westminster, or the 

 suburbs, unless it were engaged to travel at least three 

 miles out of the same, and that every hackney-coach 

 owner should constantly maintain four able horses for 

 the royal service when required. Finding it impossible 

 to prevent the use of so great a convenience, a commis- 

 sion was issued to the Master of the Horse in 1637 to 

 grant licenses to fifty hackney-coachmen in and about 

 London and Westminster, and as many others as might 

 be needful in other parts of England, each proprietor 

 being allowed to keep not more than twelve horses. 



In 1652 the number of hackney-coaches daily 

 jDlying in the streets was limited to two hundred, in 

 1654 it was increased to three hundred, allowing, how- 

 ever, only six hundred horses, and an increase was at 

 different times allowed till 1771, when the number of 

 hackney-carriages was further increased to a thousand. 

 Notwithstanding this steady increase in the use of 

 hackney-carriages, they were long assailed as a public 

 nuisance. The first hackney-coach stand was estab- 

 lished in 1634 by Captain Baily, near the " Maypole," 

 in the Strand ; " before then they had either stood at the 

 inns waiting to be sent for when they were wanted, or 

 they were driven slowly about the streets ; but in 1634 

 there was established, for the first time, a proper 

 "hackney-cab stand in the middle of the street, where 

 ihey could pull up, feed their horses, and wait to be hired. 



* See Chapter VII., "Past and Present." 



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