Growlers

and Crawlers. The four-wheel cabs; called “growlers” from the surly and discontented manners of their drivers, and “crawlers” from their slow pace

“Taken as a whole, the average drivers of hansom cabs … are smart, intelligent men, sober, honest, and hardworking… . They have little … in common with the obtrusive, surly, besotted drivers of the ‘growlersʹ and ‘crawlers.ʹ”—Nineteenth Century, March, 1893, p. 473