DRAGSMEN. 71 



fathers, could assimilate themselves better 

 to the manners and understanding of a 

 very different grade of travellers while 

 the great improvement in the pace and 

 sort of animal required, rendered the 

 situation of the " dragsman," as he was 

 now termed, one of enviable delight. 



Consequently men of a far different class 

 aspired to it. Yeomen left tilling their 

 farms military men forsook their profes- 

 sion even clergymen their pulpits, to enter 

 upon this pleasing vocation.* 



These alterations and improvements began 

 first of all on the Bath and Oxford roads. It 

 was a little before this time that driving four- 

 in-hand became a fashionable amusement 

 among the more wealthy residents of the 



* Some of my readers may remember the handsome mili- 

 tary officer, Captain Proben, who officiated on the Reading 

 coach (not Williams') for many years, who has since inhe- 

 rited considerable property in Gloucestershire ; as they will 

 the poor Parson Dennis, who exchanged his vicarage in 

 Berkshire for the box of the White Hart, Bath, but finished 

 his career on the Norwich road. 



