COACHING 



and the two men in it went into the house. The guard had 

 left the mail box open, in which the parcels were, and the out- 

 side passenger easily abstracted the one containing the notes. 

 He then left the coach. The gig with the two men took the 

 Queensferry road. The parcels were not missed until the 

 mail reached Edinburgh. On the Queensferry Road the two 

 men were joined by their accomplice, the outside passenger. 

 They left the gig and took a post chaise for Edinburgh. They 

 discharged the chaise before entering the city and gave the 

 post-boy £3 ' {BeWs Life, 2nd January 1825). 



Great improvements in all matters connected with coaching 

 were made during the first two decades of the nineteenth 

 century : these were due to the rage for driving that prevailed 

 about this time. The King was deeply interested in coaching, 

 was himself no mean whip, and he set the fashion. It did not 

 last very long. Nimrod, writing in 1835, remarks that about 

 1825 ' thirty to forty four-in-hand equipages were constantly 

 to be seen about town : one is stared at now.' 



The driving clubs held ' meets ' in George the Third's 

 time much as they do at present, but the vehicles used were 

 ' barouche landaus,' and the drive taken was much longer 

 than that in vogue to-day. Bedfont beyond Hounslow, and 

 Windsor were favourite places whither the coaches — ' barouche 

 landaus ' — drove in procession to dine. Very particular 

 attention was paid to dress. This was the costume in which 

 members of the Whijj Club, founded in 1808 as a rival to the 

 Benson, mounted their boxes on 6th June 1808 in Park Lane, 

 to drive to Harrow : — 



' A light, drab-colour cloth coat made full, single breast 

 with three tier of pockets, the skirt reaching to the ancles ; 

 a mother of pearl button the size of a crown piece ; waistcoat 

 blue and yellow stripe, each stripe an inch in depth ; small 

 clothes corded silk plush made to button over the calf of the 

 leg, with sixteen strings and rosettes to each knee. The boots 

 very short and finished with verj'^ broad straps which hang over 

 the tops and down to the ancle. A hat three inches and a half 



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