Hackney carriage a 1662 Act of Parliament establishing the Commissioners of Scotland Yard to regulate them. Licences applied literally to horse-drawn carriages, later modernised as hansom cabs (1834), that operated as vehicles for hire. The 1662 act limited the licences to 400; when it expired in 1679, extra licences were created until a 1694 act imposed a limit of 700, which was increased by later acts and abolished in 1832. There was a distinction between a general hackney carriage and a hackney coach, a hireable vehicle with specifically four wheels, two horses and six seats, and driven by a "Jarvey" (also spelled
Herdic Phaeton Company added from East Capitol and 11th Street to 15th and T NW in 1883. Other lines were added in downtown in 1886 along I Street, K Street and 13th Streets NW. The electric streetcar, however, was too much for the company to compete with and when its principal stockholder died in 1896 it ceased operations. Photo of a Herdic Omnibus and gingerbread waiting station at Lafayette Square in 1891. Two of the company's waiting stations, nicknamed "herdics", still exist on the Capitol grounds near the East Front. Herdic Phaeton Company The Herdic Phaeton Company was a late 19th Century horse