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Chapter 38
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Black Beauty, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Horse Care, Abuse, and Neglect
Class, Transportation, and Victorian England
Good, Evil, and Power
Dignity and Religion
Summary
Analysis
Black Beauty is treated well for a cab horse. Jerry owns him and knows it’s in his best interest to treat Black Beauty well. But many horses belong to big cab companies, who rent the horses to drivers for a day rate. Those drivers have to make enough money to pay for the use of the horse before they can make money for themselves, and those horses have a terrible time of it. This is a regular topic of conversation on the cab stand, and the Governor often speaks up if he sees a horse in particularly rough shape.
Now, the novel starts to explore how class and privilege influence how and if cab drivers (working-class people) can afford to be kind to their horses. Black Beauty acknowledges that Jerry is privileged, as he essentially works for himself and pockets all the money he earns (aside from the money he pays for his yearly cab license). Not all drivers are so lucky, though—and the worst victims of this system, Black Beauty implies, are the horses.
Themes
One day, a driver named Seedy Sam pulls up to the cab stand driving a horse that looks completely beat. The Governor suggests Seedy Sam belongs at the police station, but Seedy Sam says in a desperate tone that the police should go after the cab companies who charge such high rates for the horses, or after the people who set fares so low. He has to earn 18 shillings per day to pay his boss, and all drivers know that’s a lot to earn. He has six kids, only one of which works, and he himself works 16-hour days and hasn’t had a day off in months.
The Governor’s implication is that Seedy Sam’s horse is in such poor shape that Seedy Sam should have to suffer criminal consequences. But Seedy Sam insists that while he's not great to his horse, he essentially can’t afford to treat his horse well. He makes it clear that 18 shillings is an exorbitant amount of money—and presumably, he barely makes enough working 100-plus-hour weeks to feed his family.
Themes
Seedy Sam says the drivers who have good bosses, or who own their horses, can do the right thing—but he can’t. It’s absurd to tell men to not overwork the horse. The horses are exhausted, the whip is the only thing that works, and men have to put their wives and children’s wellbeing before that of the horse. Seedy Sam says he feels like an old man at 45. Gentlemen accuse cab drivers of overcharging, but he wishes they knew what it’s like to work 16 hours per day in terrible weather for weeks on end. Black Beauty has never seen Jerry look sadder, and the Governor acknowledges that this is hard work. He doesn’t know how to fix things, but he suggests Seedy Sam give his horse a kind word.
Again, Seedy Sam proposes that this is a matter of class and privilege. He simply can’t afford, he insists, to not overwork his horse—not when his wife and children’s wellbeing depends on overworking that horse. He also suggests that the wealthy people who make laws governing cab work (such as those setting the licensing fees and setting the low fares), who are presumably wealthy, have no idea what cab work is actually like. Essentially, he insists that what’s missing in this system is empathy, understanding, and protections for society’s most vulnerable.
Themes
A few mornings after, a new man drives up in Seedy Sam’s cab and says Sam is ill with a fever. The next morning, the same man is back—and he shares that Sam died early this morning, raving about his boss, Skinner, and how he never had a Sunday to rest. Governor says soberly that this is a warning for all the drivers.
Seedy Sam’s sudden death is chilling—the Governor infers that Seedy Sam worked himself to death because he felt he had no choice but to do so. Something, the novel implies, needs to change about cab work—and when the Governor insists this is a warning for the drivers, it’s possible to interpret this as a call to stand up for their rights to a day off and try to improve things for others.
Themes
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