MAIL-COACHES 41 



drivers, by dint of liberal tips to the legitimate coachmen, 

 contrived to handle the ribbons of the most famous 

 coaches, to their own intense satisfa61:ion. 



To one of the amateur drivers the professional coach- 

 men were deeply indebted, for to John Warde "the 

 father of fox-hunting," they owed the introduction of 

 springs beneath the driver's seat. Warde, who learnt to 

 tool a coach under the able tuition of Jack Bailey of The 

 Prince of Wales, found the coach-box — then utterly 

 innocent of springs and resting on the front axle — a 

 situation of the acutest discomfort which responded to 

 every jolt in the road. 



He saw at once that this could easily be remedied by 

 placing the box on springs, and endeavoured to persuade 

 the proprietors of the coaches to make the alteration. 

 They, however, looked askance and unanimously con- 

 demned it. Clinging fast to the old maxim of no 

 change, they protested that as hundreds of coachmen 

 had driven all their lives on boxes without springs it 

 was patent that springs were not necessary. Another 

 argument advanced was that if the box did not jolt the 

 coachman violently and frequently he would go to sleep, 

 and then, they asked triumphantly, what would become 

 of the coach. 



At length Mr. Warde persuaded the proprietors of the 

 Manchester Telegraph to give his invention a trial and, 

 from the fadl that this coach was the first to use them, 

 the springs were called "Telegraph" springs. When it 

 was seen that the Telegraph coachman did not go to sleep 

 at his post, and could in consequence of the greater 



