i8 



My readers will not, perhaps, deem it altogether an inappropriate 

 conclusion to this very humble little treatise, if I annex for their 

 amusement, if not for their edification, " The last Dying Speech of the 

 Coachmen from Beambridge," and some two or three other mementoes of 

 a period and of an institution which have both, alas ! long since passed 

 away and for ever. 



THE LAST DYING SPEECH OF THE COACHMEN 

 FROM BEAM BRIDGE. 



The days, nay, the very nights of those who have so long "reined" supreme 

 over the "Nonpareils" and the "Brilliants," the "Telegraphs" and the "Stars," 

 the " Magnets " and the " Emeralds," are nearly at an end, and the final way-bill 

 of the total " Eclipse " is made up. It is positively their last appearance on this 

 stage. 



In a few weeks they will be unceremoniously pushed from their boxes by an 

 inanimate thing of vapour and flywheels by a meddling fellow in a clean white 

 jacket and a face not ditto to match, who, mounted on the engine platform, has 

 for some weeks been flourishing a red hot poker over their heads, in triumph at 

 their discomfiture and downfall ; and the turnpike road, shorn of its glories, is left 

 desolate and lone. No more shall the merry rattle of the wheels, as the frisky 

 four-in-hand careers in the morning mist, summon the village beauty from her 

 toilet to the window-pane to catch a passing nod of gallantry ; no more shall they 

 loiter by the way to trifle with the pretty coquette in the bar, or light up another 

 kind of flame for the fragrant Havannah fished from amongst the miscellaneous 

 deposits in the depths of the box-coat pockets. True, the race were always a 

 little fond of raillery, and therefore they die by what they love we speak of 

 course of professional demise but no doubt they "hold it hard," after having so 

 often "pulled up" to be thus pulled down from their "high eminences," and 

 compelled to sink into mere landlords of hotels, farmers, or private gentlemen. 



