60 COACHING. 



Any person acquainted with the nature of the 

 business is aware that it would not be by any 

 means an exaggeration to say that every one 

 of these horses, for keep, duty, shoeing, ostlers, 

 harness, &c., occasioned an outlay of two 

 pounds per week, so that there was a sum of 

 five thousand pounds circulated every week in 

 this one town, besides the money that was 

 spent by travellers at the different inns ; and 

 a very considerable portion of that amount was 

 paid for labour and distributed among the dif- 

 ferent tradesmen, every one of whom was bene- 

 fited directly or indirectly. 



The state of things on the first stage of 

 the Western Road will serve as an example for 

 the whole of the remaining distance, as, of 

 course, an equal number of horses was required 

 all the way down the road, and the effect, 

 therefore, was equally destructive upon all 

 towns which were formerly thriving and pros- 

 perous — witness Reading, Newbury, Hunger- 

 ford, Marlborough. 



On the Northern Road an equally disastrous 

 effect has been produced. At Baruet, where 

 formerly Messrs. Bryant and Newman, the rival 

 postmasters, could produce three hundred to 

 four hundred pairs of horses, and where, also 



