The Merry Past 



ever took the road in England, the strange fact 

 seemed utterly unnoticed that the coach communica- 

 tion between the metropolis and the royal borough 

 was conducted upon a worse principle than on any 

 line from the Land's End to John-o'-Groat's. The 

 old lumbering " blues " in pace and cut belonged to 

 the eighteenth century, and were in sober fact a 

 mockery of travelling in comparison with the style 

 adopted by every other purveyor of locomotive con- 

 veniences. At last, upon the principle that " it never 

 rains but it pours," the affair was taken in hand by 

 those who could do it better than any others. It was 

 decided that something " slap " was to be put upon 

 the Windsor line, which resolution was come to some- 

 where about the time of Hampton races, and in a 

 fortnight after date the Taglioni was started. At the 

 end of a month this coach was doubled, starting from 

 London and Windsor at twelve each day, 'Sunday 

 excepted, and returning at four, the distance, twenty- 

 six miles, done in two hours, " everything inclusive." 

 What was probably the very perfection of a coach 

 owed its existence to the taste and spirit of a trium- 

 virate, the teams belonging to the Earl of Chesterfield, 

 Count Batthyany, and Mr. Harvey Aston. The 

 London end was driven by Mr. Richard Brackenbury, 

 whose brother was so well known on the Age, 

 Brighton ; and the Windsor, by Mr. Charles Jones, 

 also a star of the Brighton hemisphere. The Taglioni 

 did not start from any yard in town, but, issuing from 

 the sporting precincts of Chesterfield House, called 

 at the principal West End booking places, and as the 



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