33 History of Inland Transport 



4. A license duty paid by each postmaster, being 75. 6d. 

 per annum. 



5. Mileage duty on stage-coaches. 



6. A license duty on stage-coaches, being 5 on each coach 

 kept to run, and is. on each supplementary license. 



. An assessed tax on coachmen and guards. 

 8. An assessed tax on draught horses. 



There were many variations in the mileage duty on stage- 

 coaches. In 1780 it was one halfpenny for every mile travelled ; 

 in 1783 it was raised to a penny ; in 1797 it was twopence, 

 while subsequent increases led up to the highest rate of all 

 one of fivepence halfpenny per mile for coaches licensed to carry 

 more than ten passengers inside. It was, in part, to moderate 

 the pressure of this tax that Shillibeer introduced the omnibus 

 into London, 1 his first conveyance being a huge, unwieldy 

 conveyance which, drawn by three horses, spread the five- 

 pence-halfpenny mileage duty over twenty-two inside pas- 

 sengers. 



The yield from the mileage duty was 194,559 in 1814, 

 223,608 in 1815 (when there was an increase of one half- 

 penny per mile for every coach) and 480,000 in 1835. 



So long as the stage-coaches were well patronised, little 

 or nothing was heard about all this taxation, which was, 

 in effect, passed on to the traveller, who either paid without 

 grumbling or else grumbled and paid. But when the rail- 

 ways began to divert more and more traffic from the roads, 

 the duties in question fell with special severity on the coach 

 proprietors, who then divided their maledictions pretty 

 equally between the railway companies and the tax-gatherers. 



The mileage duty was especially burdensome under the 

 new conditions. Being assessed on the number of persons 

 each coach was licensed to carry, and not on the number of 

 passengers actually carried, it remained at the same amount 

 whether the coaches ran full, half full or empty. The fact 

 that the railways, which were depriving the coaches of their 

 patrons, then paid their halfpenny per mile only on every 

 four passengers actually conveyed became a grievance with 

 the coach proprietors, who thought that the railways should 

 be taxed on the same basis as themselves. 

 1 See p. 63. 



