Early Carnages 37 



drawn by eight horses, in about six weeks' time carries and 

 brings back between London and Edinburgh near four ton 

 weight of goods. In about the same time a ship navigated 

 by six or eight men, and sailing between the ports of London 

 and Leith, frequently carries and brings back two hundred 

 ton weight of goods. Six or eight men, therefore, by the help 

 of water carriage, can carry and bring back in the same time 

 the same quantity of goods between London and Edinburgh 

 as fifty broad-wheeled waggons, attended by a hundred men, 

 and drawn by four hundred horses." 



The long waggon, supplementing alike the packhorse and 

 the coach, which carried the lighter and more urgent com- 

 modities, continued, right down to the railway age, the means 

 by which the great bulk of the general merchandise of the 

 country was transported where carriage by water was not 

 available. It remained, also, in favour with the poorer classes 

 of travellers until late in the eighteenth century, when the 

 stage coaches reduced their fares to such proportions that 

 there was no longer any saving in going by the slower con- 

 veyance. 



Private carriages, as an alternative alike to the horse litter 

 and to riding on horseback, seem to have been introduced 

 into this country, from the Continent, about the middle 

 of the sixteenth century. In his " History of the Origin and 

 Progress of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen of 

 the River Thames " Henry Humpherus says that at her 

 coronation, in 1553, Queen Mary rode in a chariot drawn by 

 six horses, followed by another in which were " Lady Elizabeth, 

 her sister, and Lady Ann of Cleves." He further states that 

 in 1565 a Dutchman, Guylliam Boonen, presented to Queen 

 Elizabeth a " coach " which was considered a great improve- 

 ment on the " chariot or waggon " used at the coronation of 

 Queen Mary. But the pioneer carriages of this date were 

 little better than gorgeously decorated springless carts, to be 

 ridden in along the worst of roads, and so uncomfortable that 

 in an audience she had with the French Ambassador in 1568, 

 Queen Elizabeth told him of " the aching pains " she was 

 suffering in consequence of having been " knocked about " 

 a few days before in a coach which had been driven*too fast 

 along the streets. All the same, these private " coaches " 

 must have come into more general use by the end of the 



