CH. XVII USE OF THE WHIP 413 



would ' lay into' his wheelers, while the guard, 

 running alongside, persuaded the leaders with a 

 similar weapon. A plate by Sturgess in Harris's 

 Old Coaching Days, p. j8, illustrates the operation. 

 The ' apprentice' was more like a cat-o'-nine-tails. 



On a coach which has no whip-socket, when it is 

 necessary for any temporary purpose to get the 

 whip out of the hand, the handle is put under the 

 right leg, the stick projecting horizontally to the off 

 side, an eye being kept on it, that it does not catch 

 in a tree. 



Reynardson tells a story, also illustrated by 

 Alken, in Down the Road, p. 134, of 'stamping 

 the foot-board,' in which an old coachman, beine 

 in the habit of rattling his feet on the foot-board 

 whenever he used the ' short tommy,' got his horses 

 so used to the signal that as soon as they heard the 

 noise they jumped into their collars, without it being 

 necessary to apply the instrument. 



The catching up of the whip in a double-thong 

 seems to date from the early part of this century, 

 but not to have become general until much later. 

 The pictures of the last century do not show it 

 (see Plate VI.). In Alken's well-known plate Three 

 blind 'uns and a bolter, published in 1833, and in a 

 plate by J. L. A., published by Watson in 1824, the 

 whip is not caught up. In a picture of a coach-and- 

 six, by Cordery, in 1803 (Coachmakers' Company, 

 London), the double-thong is shown. The books 

 are silent on the subject. 



