Quoted in full from the March 16, 1876 Hamilton Spectator, a description of the scene at the Hamilton Railway station on Stuart Street as a passenger train arrives. The cabs are horse-drawn and the buses are omnibuses.
“Hardly any class of people have a better chance of becoming good judges of human nature than ‘bus and cab drivers. Any person will take the trouble to stand for half an hour in the “way out” of the Hamilton station while the principal trains are coming in in the morning or evening will come to the same conclusion. As the crowd comes surging through the passage way, the expectant cabmen look through them from front to rear. They decide in a twinkling who to let pass through, and who to canvass. They see at a glance who will be bullied and who will not. Each drummer “spots” his man in a moment. If he is a good subject he “sits on his neck,” to use his own language. He roars the name of the hotel he runs for in the man’s ear, he catches the passenger by the arm and dances him about the platform, he impresses on the bewildered stranger that his House is the cheapest and best in the city – oysters and champagne at every meal, and a fifty meerschaum pipe to smoke out of afterwards, and a feather tick to sleep on in the night time. He points to his horses and says, “Look at them steeds.” He points to his ‘bus and says “gaze upon that kerridge.” He pulls out a photograph of the Astor House, New York, and says, confidentially, “that’s our house.” If this fails, he suddenly discovers in the stranger and old friend and acquaintance. He shouts in an ecstasy, “Hulllo, old boy, how are you.” He embraces him affectionately and falls upon his neck in a flood of tears. He reminds his victim that they went to school together, and asks him, smiling through his tears, if he remembers how he used to lick him. This failing, he asks him magnanimously to step into his ‘bus out of the cold, and sit there all day if he wants to. This failing, his whispers into his ear, confidentially, that the rest of the ‘bus and cab drivers are thieves and pick-pockets, and advises him not to have anything to do with them. This failing, he becomes suddenly liberal. He’ll give the stranger fifteen cents if he will ride up in his ‘bus. Fifty cents if he will ride up; one dollar if he will rise up; and he can stay fifty years at the house if he wants to, and it won’t cost him anything. That failing, he drives the king-bolt out of his wagon, and brains the man, ties him hand and foot, throws him into the ‘bus and drives off triumphantly. The above is slightly exaggerated, but not very much. This morning two ladies from Toronto got off the morning train and came through the passage way. Unfortunately, for themselves, they were the only parties who wanted to ride uptown. They both wanted to go to the same house on Ferguson avenue; they both wanted to ride together, of course; but before they knew it, they were riding up Stuart street, each in a separate caboose, with an expression of in their faces as if they never expected to see each other again. The next train was the noon accommodation from Kincardine, and disgorged a tall, sombre-looking youth, dressed in grey cloth and cow hide boots. He stood for a few moments on the platform taking in the sights. He was spotted in a moment. Some of the cabmen went into the back yard and filed their teeth, others put on steel knuckles, grasped their whips by the light end and calmly waited.
The stranger advanced.
“Want a ride up, sir?”
“No thank you.”
But he did go up and was driven round the city for an hour and was charged for the nice ride.
The scene at the station is a lively one and always amusing., and, though no one is ever hurt, still, more money is put in circulation by people being induced to ride up, when otherwise they would have walked.”
