Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1875 — Disguised Female Cab-Drivers. [ARTICLE]

Disguised Female Cab-Drivers.

A woman has recently been _ detected in England who has been driving a cab, in the guise of a man, for the past ten years. She was born, it seems, at Taunton, Somerset, where her father was land agent to a nobleman. She had a great liking for “ handling the ribbons,” and learned to drive horses while very young. When little more than fourteen years of age she was married to an army surgeon by the name of Honeywell, and her name, as a married woman, is Margaret Honeywell. The two lived so unhappily together that at length she ran away from home and went to London. She there met with a woman who had formerly been farm-servant to her father and who had married a cabman, and, from what she heard in regard to the cabdriving business; she resolved to earn an independent living in that branch of industry. By wearing her hair short, amd by a judicious use of clothing, she man- ’ aged to present the appearance of a short, stout man. Her face* being of a

masculine type, her complexion florid, and she having an impediment in her speech caused by a defective palate, inspired to render the illusion perfect For three years in London and six in Liverpool she plied the whip as a cab “ man,” her sex being unknown and unsuspected by all. Mrs Honeywell states that during the time she acted as a “ cabby” she saw a notice in a newspaper that her husband had failed in business. In all probability the public would not have heard, for some time, of this female cabdriver, bad it not been for her unfortunate share in a theft, which caused her arrest and discovery. A similat instance has occurred in Paris. Some months ago the driver or a cab died suddenly, and was replaced a few days later by a quiet, delicate-look-ing confrere, who was rather remarkable for his civility to his customers and for his singular unsociable find silent manners. The other coachmen dubbed him “ Little Louis,” and troubled their heads very little about him, though, in spite of bis silence and unsociability, he was always obliging, and ready to render service to anyone. The other day poor “ Little Louis” was missing from his stand. He had fallen sick, and had been taken to the hospital, where it was speedily discovered that the quiet little coachman was in reality a woman. It appears that she was the wife of the coachman, who had died suddenly. Being left with an infant a few months old, she had formed the desperate resolve of taking her dead husband’s place, and thus supporting herself and her child. So she put her infant out to nurse, donned male attire, and for some months endured all the hardships and exposures of a cabdriver’s life. At the end of that time her child fell sick and died, and then the poor mother broke down, too, and became seriously ill. A few days of fever and delirium in the hospital, and then the end came, and the poor creature’s toils and sorrows were ended. A strange, sad little romance was this out of the many that stud the annals of the poor of Pans.