WOMEN CABDRIVERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 3 May 1907, Page 4

WOMEN CABDRIVERS.

Paris boasts of two women cabdrivers. The correspondent of the London Daily Jlail thus describes the first da}' out of the cab-women:—''Both are pleasing in appearance. Starting at 8 o'clock from M. Rabier's cabyard, 94 Hue Amelot, they were becomingly dressed in low-crowned, black-glazed luits, very full box-colored coats with metal buttons, and a wide mantle over their shoulders. Mile. Charnie wore a pair oi ample kinekcr-hockers, not unlike those l-.idy cycli.-N used fo wear, which can be converted in a few seconds into a skirt reaching down to the ankles. A crowd of ostlers and eabmeu had assembled to cee the two women start out. wer« many shouts and cries of "Cood luck" as the two cabs drove out of the yard, and they were immediately pounced upou by a score of photograph ers, (ju approaching the central markets the traffic was so great that it was necessary to go at a walking pace. Tho market women simply poured chaff on the unfortunate cabwomen A big brawny vegetable dealer shouted out:'So your husband mends your stockings now, I suppose! 5 Another: -'She can't whip her old man, so that's why she's taken to driving a cab.' A market porter gave a flourish to his immense white hat as Mine. DulTaut drove past. 'Don't gn to the left, madame/ he shouted, "it's the side on which the heart is placed.'' Mnie. Dutfaut thus related her morning's ex- J perience: 'I am very pleased with my 1 first morning's work. I Parted to ply for hire on the P l ace de l'Opera, and J Wib immediately hailed by a gentleman who simply called the iirst cab at hand. ()u my driving over to (he kerbstone lie looked up at me with a surprised smile aud said: Hello, a woman cabby!' He paid me most generously. My second fare, too, paid me considerably over and if it is going to be like that every day, I think I have a 'soft thing.'" The cabwomen were in ! great request all the afternoon, the public taking to them most kindly as to something new and amusing. The probable result will be a great number of applications for licenses from would-be women cab-drivers.