176 The Old Lover Boach 



was horrified with his republicanism, as he pleaded guilty to 

 preferring a covered carriage sheltered from weather, and 

 his home every night, to the bitter drive in the dead of 

 winter, and his return home only three nights a week. 



It must have been terrible work for coachmen and guards 

 in very heavy snow. The old pictures of digging out the 

 coach and sending for farm horses to pull it out are not at 

 all exaggerated ; and guards who wished for promotion for 

 extra zeal performed feats which were incredible almost, 

 such as taking the bags and mounting one of the horses, 

 m.aking their way at night across country through the snow. 



Another kind of traffic, long since superseded by Act of 

 Parliament, may be found recorded in some of Seymour's 

 old caricatures of dog-carts. Fruit and fish, crockery and 

 light wares, were hawked in small carts drawn by dogs, as 

 they now are in Belgium. Bull-dogs and large S23aniels, if 

 I remember right, prevailed, and often you would see a 

 great hulking lubber riding in the cart, and the poor dogs 

 with their tongues out regularly beaten. Belgian dogs are 

 of a peculiar breed, and seem as well calculated for the work 

 as the Esquimaux dogs, the great diflference between the 

 English and Belgians being that dog-cart men treated their 

 dogs cruelly sometimes, but in Belgium my experience was 

 quite the reverse. The travelling circulated a great deal of 

 money naturally. The Rose at Sittingbourne had the 

 credit of making up sixty beds, and having twenty pairs of 

 horses on call in the stables ; and the George, another good 

 inn opposite of smaller dimensions, did a good trade too, as 

 did the Bull, and Wright's at Rochester. Head chamber- 

 maids and head waiters of long service became hotel keepers 

 very often, and numbers of people who made a good mark 

 in the world sprang from the local towns which were the 

 centres of travelling. If the truth was really told, there 

 was a great deal of smuggling, too, behind the scenes, both 



