'ON THE BOX: 227 



weather, declaring he got rheumatism if he did not. His top- 

 coat was the thick drab West of England cloth. It was neces- 

 sary to make the sleeves very large on account of the stiffness 

 and thickness of the cloth, and the consequence was that in wet 

 weather the rain drove up them and wetted him. To obviate 

 this he used to make Bill Emery get some clean straw out of 

 the stables to fill them up, and to do this effectually Bill kept 

 a short strong stick to ram the straw tight. One day whilst 

 they were changing horses Bill purposely left the stick up his 

 right-hand sleeve. They had not gone far when they came to 

 a sharp hill. Wanting to hit his leaders with his whip, Saunders 

 was perplexed and pained to find that he could not bend his 

 arm, and was unable to use his whip, so he called to the guard 

 to jump down and touch up the leaders, declaring that his arm 

 was quite stiff from rheumatism. He did not discover the stick 

 up his sleeve till he got to the next change, when of course Bill 

 vowed he had forgotten to withdraw it after the ramming opera- 

 tion ; but Saunders stuck to it that it was rheumatism- which 

 made his arm stiff, and that it was stiff for weeks after. 



All the mails had guards, who had charge of the mails and 

 were responsible for their punctual arrival and safe delivery, and 

 under whose orders the coachmen were. Very few of the day 

 coaches carried guards ; they only added to the load, and took 

 up the place of a paying passenger. A good many of the heavy 

 night and long-distance coaches, many of which ran through very 

 long distances, had guards, however. I am told that Killing- 

 ley on the Exeter subscription coach used to go right through 

 to Plymouth from London, 220 miles. How long he rested 

 before going back I do not know. On the mails were Jack 

 Webb, Louth; Jack Tew, Gloucester; Jack Thetford, Edinbro'; 

 Dick Watts, Devonport ; Tom Preedy, Exeter ; Bob Morne, 

 Barnstaple ; Exeter Telegraph (coach), John Acworth, George 

 and Sam Southgate. . There was a notorious little guard between 

 Yeovil and Exeter on the Quicksilver, Tommy Waters, who 

 always wore a green cutaway coat and brass buttons and top- 

 boots. He had a very peculiar low voice. Whilst the mail 



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