io8 THE COACHING ERA 



Here's to the dragsmen I've dragged into song, 

 Salisbury, Mountain and Co,, Sir; 

 Here's to the Cracknell who cracks them along, 

 Five twenty-fives at a go. Sir. 

 Let the steam pot, etc. 



Here's to Mac Adam, the mac of all macs, 

 Here's to the road we ne'er tire on; 

 Let me but roll o'er the granite he cracks, 

 Ride ye who like it on iron. 



Let the steam pot 



Hiss till it's hot. 

 Give me the speed of the Tantivy Trot. 



Chaplin was shrewd and far-seeing and, realizing that 

 the railways would oust the coaches, laid his plans 

 accordingly. He saw that to attempt to fight the rail- 

 ways was useless, whilst to make friends with them in 

 their infancy would mean much profit in the future. 

 Eventually he sold out of his coaching business and in- 

 vested his money in railway stock, which brought good 

 return, and before his death he became chairman of the 

 London and South Western Railway. 



Benjamin Worthy Home of the Golden Crosswas a man 

 of very different temperament to Chaplin, for he was 

 nervous and irritable, and had a morbid hatred of seeing 

 anyone doing better than himself. His chief hobby 

 appears to have been opposition, for he was continually 

 trying to run some coach or other off the road, and with 

 such extreme bitterness did he enter into these com- 

 petitions that he would go to any lengths to ruin rival 

 proprietors. Once he went down the road over night and 



