236 ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



of the distance I have gone, sitting behind English 

 horses, with ' the entire freedom given to their heads,' 

 I am quite certain I should not be now alive to 

 record it. 1 



It is one of the failings of our nature to look with 

 indifference on a skill we do not possess ; and, in conse- 

 quence, many persons consider themselves proficients in 

 an art which they never practised. Were your corre- 

 spondent, to whom I have alluded, to give himself the 

 trouble to ask a hundred coachmen the question, he 

 would not find one amongst them who would venture to 

 say that he was equal to the task of driving a fast coach 

 without bearing reins on his horses, and I think this puts 

 the matter at rest ; but I must be allowed to add, that 

 great credit is due to that coachman who, at the present 

 pace, and with the present breed of horses, gets a fast 

 coach through a country for twelve calendar months 

 without any accident happening, unless it be one not 

 within his power to prevent. Night coachmen, in par- 

 ticular are deserving of great praise, and particularly 

 those who drive the mails, for they are now timed at a 

 rate scarcely safe for lamplight. Were it not indeed 

 for the exemplary change that has lately been effected 

 in their moral character, innumerable accidents would 

 happen ; but a coachman drunk on his box is now never 

 seen nor thought of. The risks these men run, however, 

 are considerable, and they ought to be better paid than 

 they are. 



1 Bearing reins have their uses and abuses. — Ed. 



