End of the Coaching Era 329 



snow five times. The following day fourteen mail-coaches 

 were abandoned on different roads. 



So, in proportion as the railways spread, the coaching 

 traffic declined. In 1839 a London coach proprietor, Mr E. 

 Sherman, of the " Bull and Mouth," told the Select Committee 

 on Turnpike Trusts that the persons then being carried by 

 coach were mostly timid people who did not like to go by 

 railway, though every day it was found that the timidity 

 was lessening, and that many individuals who formerly would 

 not have travelled by train for any consideration were doing 

 so in preference to going by coach. 



The severity of the railway competition with the coaches 

 was, indeed, beyond all question ; but the coach proprietors 

 considered that their difficulty in facing it was rendered much 

 worse by the heavy taxation on their enterprise. 



The earliest stage-coaches, patronised mostly by the poorer 

 class of travellers, were not taxed at all ; but when the " flying 

 coaches " and the " handsome machines with steel springs 

 for the ease of passengers and the conveniency of the country " 

 were put on the road and attracted passengers of a better 

 class, the owners of private conveyances began to complain of 

 the unfairness of their being taxed while the owners of public 

 coaches were not. Wanting more money to meet the heavy 

 expenditure on the American war, North met the complaints 

 of the private-carriage owners by putting a tax on the stage- 

 coaches ; and the precedent thus established, in or about 

 the year 1780, was followed by later Chancellors of the 

 Exchequer, the taxation being subsequently extended alike 

 to every class of vehicles used for coach traffic and, in 1832, 

 to all classes of railway passengers. 



In 1837 a Select Committee appointed to inquire into the 

 taxation of internal communication reported that the taxes 

 then in force in respect to land travelling by animal power 

 were as follows : 



1. Assessed taxes on carriages and horses kept for private 

 use. 



2. A post-horse duty. 



3. A duty on carriages kept to let for hire, being ^5 55. on 

 each carriage with four wheels, and 3 53. for each carriage 

 with two wheels. 



