EARLY COACHES 15 



fellow, fancied he made a figure, and seemed mightily 

 pleased with himself." 



These stage waggons, although humble conveyances 

 and looked on with contempt by their later rivals, the 

 coaches, yet continued stolidly on their way and, from 

 the nature of their patrons, suffered so little from 

 competition that they outlasted their more showy rivals 

 by many years. Even now, when stage-coaches have 

 long ceased to be, the carriers' vans which ply to and 

 from the country towns to remote hamlets can lay claim 

 to being a diredl survival of the oldest form of public 

 conveyance. 



