CH. XIX LENGTHS OF STAGES 437 



Beginning with five-mile stages, a horse to the 

 mile will give one rest-horse to each team, and 

 when the lengths of the stages are increased to 

 six, and to seven and a half miles, the number of 

 rest-horses to each team is increased to two, and to 

 three and a half, respectively. 



It may, therefore, be a matter for consideration 

 whether to have shorter stages or more rest-horses, 

 a question obviously controlled by the location of 

 the chance-stables. 



The Maisons-Laffitte coach of 1894, doing igj4 

 miles, with four teams, in two hours each way, or 39 

 miles in the day, ran for six weeks with twenty 

 horses, several of them being replaced for a day or 

 two by hired horses owing to slight causes of unfit- 

 ness. This was a fast coach, always well loaded, 

 running six days in the week, and in warm weather ; 

 five miles of the road not very good. 



It is sometimes a question whether or not the last 

 team down the road should do the last two stages as 

 one, a fresh team bringing the coach back over those 

 two stages. This arrangement will require the same 

 number of horses, but the location of the stable for 

 the last change must be such as to reduce those two 

 stages together to a distance of not over twelve 

 miles. 



A twenty-eight mile road, for example, would 

 be usually divided as follows : first stage 7 miles, 

 second stage 8 miles, third stage 7 miles, and fourth 

 stage 6 miles, each team doing one stage each way. 



