CHAPTER VI COACHING COMPETITION 



THE early coaching days knew no such thing 

 as competition; the heavy cumbersome old 

 coaches went their own way, and took their 

 own time as it seemed best to them, secure 

 in the comfortable convidlion that however much the 

 public might grumble they had no redress. Dissatisfied 

 passengers could not then transfer their patronage to 

 "the opposition," and had either to make the best of 

 things as they were or remain at home. 



The introduction of mail-coaches in 1784 altered this, 

 for they set a standard of perfe6lion heretofore undreamt 

 of, and in consequence the proprietors of the old stage- 

 coaches found their receipts dwindling with alarming 

 rapidity. Passengers naturally preferred to travel by a 

 conveyance which could be depended upon to arrive 

 at the scheduled time, and not at any indefinite hour 

 of the twenty-four as had hitherto been the leisurely 

 custom. 



The coach proprietors, seeing these things and realizing 

 that they were inevitable, rose to the occasion and, 

 with the intention of giving the "go by" to the mails, 

 they built new and better constructed coaches, horsed 

 them with superior cattle, employed brisker coachmen, 

 and thoroughly reorganized their establishments. 



The great disadvantage of the mails was that they 

 travelled chiefly by night, and the stage-coach pro- 

 prietors soon saw that if they put on the road a service of 

 fast day coaches, in speed and appointments equal to the 



8s 



