278 COACHING. • 



to prove to Parliament that they would pay, 

 persons called " trafiBc takers" were placed 

 at the entrance of large towns to note down 

 the traffic in and out of the town. When 

 the Brighton and South Coast line was before 

 the House of Commons, and evidence was 

 given as to the existing traffic, the counsel 

 for the company suggested that they might 

 be allowed fairly to say that this would be 

 doubled, when increased means of travelling 

 were afforded. This seems ludicrous now, 

 when probably one train of passengers and 

 one of goods carries considerably more than 

 the above estimate. 



Many ineffectual attempts have been made to 

 introduce steam-carriages on the roads, and in 

 1822 Mr. (afterwards Sir) Golds worthy Gurney 

 • — inventor of the steam-jet, emphatically called 

 by engineers " the life and soul of locomotion " 

 — constructed a carriage for that purpose. To 

 show that it was capable of ascending and des- 

 cending hills, of maintaining a uniformity of 

 speed over long distances and on different kinds 

 of roads, a journey was undertaken from Houns- 

 low Barracks to Bath and back. On arriving 

 at Melksham, where a fair was being held, the 

 people made an attack upon the steam-carriage, 



