In circa 1847 an even more complicated cab-fare map was issued, 'The Circuiter, or Distance Map of London', which was 'invented' (the publisher's word) by Joachim Friederichs of 19 Granby Street, Hampstead Road, St. Pancras, Middlesex. 'The monstrous im¬positions practised by Cab-Drivers', wrote Joachim Friederichs, 'have long been the subject of general complaints; of the plans hitherto suggested to remedy the situation - and they have been many - not one has been found to answer the purpose.' What Friederichs had produced was a plan of London covered in circles of half-mile diameter. By simply calculating the number of circles between one point and another one arrived at the approximate figure of the number of miles covered. In a leaflet Friederichs called upon cab proprietors to affix his map inside their cabs and at night to provide lamps so that passengers could consult them. Further editions and versions of the map appeared in circa 1850, 1851 (for visitors to the Great Exhibition), and circa 1862 (for visitors to the Inter¬national Exhibition). According to a note on the later editions, the London map constituted number one of a series of distance maps of the principal towns of the United Kingdom.



The most prolific producer of cab-fare guides and maps, was Edward Mogg. Publisher of Paterson's Roads, railway guides, railway handbooks, and tables of waterman's fares, his special interest had always been transport. In 1844 he published an Omnibus Guide. In this appeared a list of the fares of the hackney coaches and cabs, 'by which the reader may, in the space of a minute, ascertain what is the legal charge of his journey in one of those carriages, and prevent the imposition, which, to the shame of the drivers of these vehicles, it is their universal custom to attempt.' It was small and could be 'carried in the recess of a fashionable coat without disfiguring the symmetry or encumbering the person of the most fastidious.' Prophesied The Times reviewer, 'This book should make cabmen honest.'

Better known, and certainly far easier to consult within the confines of a cab than Mogg's maps, was Mogg's Ten Thousand Cab Fares. This purple-backed volume first appeared in 1851. Mogg announced its publication in the columns of The Times whilst taking the opportunity to remind the public of his various London maps. The Times reviewer noticed this new volume too. 'Mr Mogg', he wrote, 'has just produced one of the most useful little volumes that has lately issued from the press.' Sponge, in Surtees' Mr Sponge's Sporting Tour, never travelled without Mogg in his pocket. It was, he told his fellow guests in a London hotel on a dreary wet morning, far more useful than 'Dizzy's Life of Bentinck. Australia and California, in his opinion, were quite unfit 'for sportsmen and men fond of their Moggs.'



In due course Mogg provided not only cab-fare information and advice, but also a personal service. In the 1846 edition of the Omnibus Guide he recommended that passengers finding them¬selves in a whole series of difficult situations should repair to his office. 'The Editor cannot throw open his doors to answer gratuit¬ously upon application the interrogations of the idle or the curious', he warned, 'but will, in any case of doubt or dispute, furnish at very moderate charge, a correct certificate of distance, a document that will not infrequently be found to supersede the necessity of an application to magisterial authority ... ' Mogg did not restrict himself to London commissions. On the contrary, distances could be determined and ground measured by experienced surveyors in any part of the kingdom