BRIGHTON, BATH, AND DOVER ROADS. 231 



another eighteen inches or two feet, and a dirty red stuff curtain 

 (stuffy too), a narrow table in the centre of each, and a narrow 

 ledge to sit upon against the side of the pew on each side, and 

 you have 'the box presented to your view.' There would be 

 five or six of these places on each side of the room, according 

 to its size ; they answered to the modern private room, and once 

 taken were sacred to their occupants the less favoured traveller 

 having to share the still dirtier public table in the middle of the 

 room. Oh ! more fortunate youths of the present day who revel 

 in the modern hotel, how little do you know of the discomforts 

 of travelling shared not so very long ago with his contemporaries 

 by him who writes these lines ! You know not the perpetual 

 ' Yes, sir ! coming, sir ! ' (but he never came ! ) of the one un- 

 fortunate dirty, greasy waiter who had customers in the eight or 

 ten boxes and at the middle table to wait upon. The memory of 

 those days of my youth has, however, caused me to digress, so I 

 must turn from the 'Chop, sir? yes, sir!' to our muttons, in the 

 shape of my father and Alexander. Very little negdtTation was 

 necessary. It was settled that within a fortnight they should, 

 between them, put on a coach leaving Brighton and London at 

 the same time as Goodman's seven o'clock Times. Well can 

 I recall it, a yellow coach, called the Wonder, and an afternoon 

 coach leaving both ends at four, a dark coach with red wheels 

 called the Quicksilver, both timed to do the journey to and 

 from the Elephant and Castle in four hours and forty-five 

 minutes. Capps drove the Wonder; Bob Pointer, as fine a 

 coachman as ever was seen, drove one end of the Quick- 

 silver. 



All went swimmingly till one evening, going out of Brighton, 

 a young coachman, son of one of the large coach proprietors 

 whose office was in Castle Square, was driving the four thorough- 

 bred chestnuts, as good and quick 'a Townend team ' as could be 

 found, when, for some never to be explained reason, they broke 

 away from him, and he turned the coach over just opposite the 

 New Steine Hotel. Several passengers were badly shaken, and 

 two unfortunate ones were thrown on the spikes that surmount 



