THE COMING OF THE RAILWAY 251 



Notwithstanding the many disadvantages under 

 which the railway laboured at its commencement, it 

 had come to stay, and when the initial difficulty of 

 accurate time-keeping had been overcome, and passengers 

 reconciled to parting with their luggage, the popularity 

 of the new method of travelling increased rapidly. 



Some coach proprietors realizing that steam would 

 inevitably displace the coaches, severed their connexion 

 with the road, and threw in their lot with the railways. 

 Others with stubborn determination waged unequal 

 warfare and were ruined. "Why are the shareholders 

 of a railway like bad aftors?" became a favourite 

 conundrum, the answer being, "Because they ruin the 

 stage proprietors." 



As the network of railways increased, the coaches 

 were taken off the road. The crack ones went first, 

 those famous long distance coaches whose names had 

 become household words. Provincial coaches in out- 

 of-the-way distri6fs had longer life, some of them con- 

 tinuing to run till quite recent times. 



The coachmen faced the world with their backs 

 against the wall and bitterness in their hearts. They 

 were men whose lives were bound up in their coach 

 and the interests of "the road." One old coachman 

 who had driven daily for eighteen years was at length 

 persuaded to take a holiday, which he celebrated by 

 travelling on the box-seat of the opposition coach. 

 Men who had tooled the crack coaches to their own and 

 every one else's admiration, declared they would never 

 condescend to drive anything but a four-in-hand. 



