HO UNS LOW'S COACHING DAYS 73 



amid its chairs upholstered in green rep, its horse- 

 hair sofas and cut-glass lustres ; while on either side 

 the vulgar herd sits at open windows in its shirt- 

 sleeves, and smokes black and exceedingly foul pipes, 

 and gazes complacently upon the clothes hanging out 

 to dry in the garden. 



Hounslow presented a, difterent picture before the 

 opening of the railways to the West. Two thousand 

 post-horses were then kept in the town, and coaches 

 and private carriages went dashing through at all 

 hours of the day and night, so closely upon one 

 another that they almost resembled a procession. As 

 the poet says, the pedestrian then forced his way — 



" Through coaches, drays, choked turnpikes, and a whirl 

 Of wheels, and roar of voices, and confusion ; 

 Here taverns wooing to a pint of ' purl,' 

 There mails fast flying off, like a delusion." 



And, indeed, they have, like delusions, vanished 

 utterly. So early as April, 1842, a daily paper is 

 found saying : " At the formerly flourishing village 

 of Hounslow, so great is the general depreciatiou of 

 property, on account of the transfer of traffic to the 

 railway, that at one of the inns is an inscription, 

 ' New milk aud cream sold here ; ' while another 

 announces the profession of the landlord as ' mending 

 boots and shoes.'" The turnpike tolls at the same 

 time, between London and Maidenhead, had decreased 

 from £18 to £4 a week. 



Yet Hounslow very narrowly missed becoming a 

 great railway junction. That, indeed, was its proper 

 destiny when the coaching era was done and the 

 place decaying. Hounslow became the busy place 



