CH. V LAMPS 91 



readily taken off to be used to look along the road in 

 the case of a doubtful bridge, or the like. The main 

 coach-lamps are often used for the same purpose. 



Lamps are sometimes made with slides which 

 cover the glass when they are not lighted, but 

 they are ugly, and when lamps are not in use they 

 should be inside the coach. 



It is not considered the ' proper thing' to carry 

 the lamps in the daytime. This is, to a certain 

 extent, an arbitrary dictate of coaching fashion, 

 based, however, on a real custom of road-coaching. 

 When coaching was a business, the lamps were 

 kept at the station where the coach changed just 

 before dark, and were put on the coach at the 

 change, having been trimmed and filled — for they 

 were oil-lamps — during the day. When morning 

 came, they were left at the first change-place, so 

 that a coach was never seen carrying them in the 

 daytime, and this has been adopted as a fashion. 

 .Moreover, the lamps, being large, are a good deal 

 in the way of persons, especially ladies, getting up 

 and down, — a practical reason for leaving them off. 

 At coaching meets, where uniformity is desirable, 

 they must be either on all the coaches or off all of 

 them, and they are always off. 



It has become, therefore, one of the conditions of a 

 perfectly turned-out coach that it should not have its 

 lamps on, though it is hard to give any good reasons, 

 apart from those just mentioned, why the lamps 

 should not be on a coach as they are on a brougham 



