COACHING 



*'One and sixpence, sir." ** Bless me! just double! 

 Let me see — two hundred miles, at two shillings 

 per mile, postboys, turnpikes, etc., £20. This will 

 never do. Have you no coach that does not carry 

 luggage on the top?" "Oh yes, sir," replies the 

 waiter, " we shall have one to-night that is not 

 allowed to carry a band-box on the roof."^ "That's 

 the coach for me ; pray what do you call it ? " 

 "The Quicksilver mail, sir; one of the best out 

 of London — Jack White and Tom Brown, picked 

 coachmen, over this ground — Jack White down 

 to-night." "Guarded and lighted?" "Both, sir; 

 blunderbuss and pistols in the sword-case ;^ a lamp 



••^The conveyance of 'trunks, parcels, and other packages' on the roof of a 

 mail-coach was prohibited in the Postmaster-General's circular to mail con- 

 tractors of 29th June, 1807. As the mails increased it became impossible to 

 enforce this regulation, and the bags were carried wherever they could be stowed. 

 ' The Druid ' says of the Edinburgh mail-coach: 'The heaviest night as regards 

 correspondence was when the American mail had come in. On those occasions 

 the bags have been known to weigh above 16 cwt. They were contained in 

 sacks seven feet long and were laid in three tiers across the top, €0 high that 

 no guard unless he were a Chang in stature could look over them . . . and 

 the waist (the seat behind the coachman) and the hind boot were filled as well.' 



^ It must be remembered that the old gentleman s peks by the light of his 

 knowledge of nearly a century earlier, when highway robaery was very common, 

 and it was not usual for coaches to run at night. At the period to which 

 Nimrod refers highwaymen had not entirely disappeared from the roads (William 

 Rea was hanged for this oflFence, 4th July, 1828), and not every stage-coach 

 carried a guard. Mail-coaches, all of which carried guards, were, of course, 

 unknown to Nimrod's old gentleman. 



39 



