238 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



coach soon after the middle of the seventeenth 

 century. 



In some respects these descriptions recall vividly 

 to mind the rabid antagonism some two centuries 

 later to the introduction of the steam engine, not 

 to speak of the objections that are still raised by 

 a proportion of the community to the general 

 adoption of automobilism. 



Prior to the introduction of the stage coach into 

 England a four-wheeled carriage with a long, low 

 body had been employed to convey the general 

 public from one part of the country to another, 

 and when the stage coach first arrived many 

 of our wiseacres were quick to prophesy that the 

 death-knell of the nation's greatness had in con- 

 sequence been sounded ! 



Perhaps one of the stoutest of the opponents of 

 reform in this respect was a certain Mr Cressett, 

 of Charterhouse, who in the year 1662 openly and 

 in very straightforward language affirmed that the 

 adoption of the stage coach must "entirely ruin 

 the country," and who in that year wrote a vigor- 

 ous tract, in which he explained entirely to his 

 satisfaction — also, apparently, to the satisfac- 

 tion of his partisans — that the amount of harm 

 the introduction of road coaching must inevit- 

 ably cause to the community at large would be 

 enormous. 



His remarks, too voluminous to reprint in ex- 

 tenso, contain in one place the observation that 



