']6 THE COACHING ERA 



a menagerie cage. It provided a snug receptacle for the 

 conveyance of contraband spirits and unlicensed game, 

 for smugglers and poachers soon realized that there was 

 no safer conveyance than His Majesty's Mails. Occa- 

 sionally officers of the law would appear unexpeftedly 

 with the avowed intention of searching the coach. Then 

 was the time to see the guard in all the dignity of out- 

 raged officialdom, as he virtuously and indignantly 

 upheld the inviolable sandlity of His Majesty's Mails, 

 and averred his firm determination to defend them with 

 his life and his blunderbuss. As he was stri6tly within his 

 rights, and no one might tamper with or delay the mails 

 without special authority, he was thus enabled to pro- 

 ceed on his journey and land his contraband spirit or bags 

 of game in security. Some guards even went so far as to 

 use the mail-bags for their own convenience, and one. 

 who dealt extensively in fish, carried his goods in the 

 official bags, whereat the sorters at the Post Office 

 complained exceeding bitterly that they were nearly 

 smothered with fish scales. 



As the coaches constituted pra61:ically the only means 

 of conveyance, it naturally followed that all sorts of 

 things were carried through their medium, and when the 

 Earl of Shrewsbury wished to send a valuable hound to 

 Mr. Villebois, the master of the Hampshire hunt, he 

 consigned it with many admonitions to the care of the 

 guard on the coach. For better security it was put in the 

 boot, but when the coach arrived at Sandwell Priory near 

 Newbury, where Squire Villebois was anxiously awaiting 

 his hound, he was considerably chagrined to find it had 



