Little was found on Mr. Horton, and that was from the archives the New Yorker Magazine  October 28,  1939 volume 15 issue #2.   It seems they were doing “slice of life” stories and Marc Jones must have been entranced by the various people they interviewed.  As for the Captain, he is a rather askew Bucket with a Neptunian handle, appropriately enough.  For Indian ancestry he gets the rather unique Ascendant of “Zuni Sun Worshipers,” that is about a return to nature and a simpler and uncomplicated time and place.

Our header image is probably what the New Yorker writers met Captain Horton driving in Manhattan.  The taxi industry in New York thrived  in the later 30s, and the required license cost $10 in 1937.  The medallion itself was still a lucrative symbol going for about $3.000 then or the price of a substantial house in the affluent northern suburbs.

from the New Yorker

Captain Horton holds a masters’ certificate and has commanded several small vessels. It was the loss of his last command, which went down off Madagascar with a cargo of wild animals some three years ago that reduced him to his present condition as a New York taxicab driver.. The Captain. is 37-years-old, six feet nine, 231 pounds. He hails from Rhode Island, and is part Indian.

In seven trips to Africa he captured a lot of lions, leopards, and Cheetahs, for private zoos in the States. At the moment he says he’s holding one of the worst jobs a man of parts can sink to, although he’s glad to have it. “There are more animals on the streets of N.Y. than in the African jungle”, he says.  “Look at the one,” Horton points to a fellow cabbie, ” they go eight-five to ninety-two miles an hour!”

While on the subject of animals he took a fling at the ballyhoo surrounding giant gorilla (not mentioning any names of course) and said flatly, “They capture themselves.”  From his wealth of experience in many climes, the Captain has concluded that the Newfoundlanders are the most hospitable of all people, although there is a lot to be said for the Baca tribe of Africa, with whom the Captain has sojourned.  “Just don’t get too personal with them,” he told us harking back to goodness knows what contretemps.

His work this summer has been mainly driving people back and forth from the New York World’s Fair (held out in Flushing Queens — now home to the New York Mets). Horton said that most people were great tippers except the “Bostonians.”

His Capricorn Moon suggests that he was spare in his habits and square his Sun (the Line of Vitality) that while he longed for the sea, he was probably land bound permanently.  At least New York City had a bustling harbor as a compensation but the Mars conjunct his ascendant particularly both in Leo, would make the journey more stressful than need be and probably lead to high blood pressure or a heart attack.