104 DRIVING. 



jumped. With respect to the invention of this line and crank 

 break there is, or was a few years ago, in the bar of the Black 

 Horse Inn, Exeter, a great earthenware jug capacious enough to 

 hold nearly a dozen of champagne, and on this Brobdingnagian 

 vessel is an inscription to the effect that it was presented to a 

 certain Paul Collings, by coachmen and others, as a sort of 

 thankoffering for having devised this particular form of break. 

 This Paul Collings was a little eight- stone man who once used 

 to drive a coach between Exeter and Plymouth, and was at 

 work about fifty or sixty years ago. The writer of this chapter 

 has seen the jug, and heard the story from the old coachman's 

 son, the landlord of the inn in question but in other quarters 

 the invention has been ascribed to different people. Paul 

 Collings, senior, once created no small sensation on the road 

 by crawling into the front boot during a heavy shower of rain. 

 He had no passengers at the time, and no coachman being 

 visible, it was thought that the horses had started off by them- 

 selves. A horseman gave chase, and after a long ride was not 

 very well pleased at seeing the little man's head appear out of 

 the boot ! 



We believe that about twenty-five years ago a break was 

 invented which acted automatically directly the holding back 

 of the horses put pressure upon the pole ; but the plan did 

 not answer. Then there was a further tribute to science when 

 Mr. E. Onslow-Secker, who drove his coach, 'The Quicksilver,' 

 from Folkestone to Canterbury, invented a break, which ap- 

 peared to answer every purpose, for it can be applied or taken 

 off either by hand or foot, and is powerful enough almost to 

 skid the wheels. 



