HACKiNEY COACHES. 257 



The first hirable veLicles in London were the 

 hackney-coaches, so called not from the village 

 of Hackney, as commonly supposed, but from 

 the old word " to hack," or let on hire. The 

 first hackney-coaches were stout-built vehicles, 

 fitted for the rough roads of the time ; they 

 made their appearance originally in 1625, and 

 were kept at certain inns, where they had to be 

 sent for when wanted, and these were only at 

 this time twenty in number. 



In a proclamation issued by Charles I., in 

 1635, the King prohibited the general and 

 promiscuous use of hackney-coaches in London, 

 Westminster, and their suburbs, as being " not 

 only a great disturbance to His Majesty, his 

 dearest consorc the Queen, the nobility, and 

 others of place and degree, but the streets were 

 so pestered and the pavements broken up 

 that the common passage was thereby 

 hindered." It was therefore commanded that " no 

 hired coaches should be used in London 

 except to travel three miles out of the 

 same." 



Two years after the foregoing prohibition the 

 King granted a licence for fifty hackney-coach- 

 men in and about London and Westminster, to 



s 



