236 DRIVING. 



shall respect your prejudices, and have prepared a very nice 

 birch for you ; ' and sure enough he laid into me till he was so 

 blown he could lay in no longer. Fortunately for him my father 

 was in bed with the gout, for he was furious at the treatment 

 I had received. However, Christmas came, and I went home 

 and returned to the same school again, and remained there till 

 I went to Eton. 



The Wonder and Criterion flourished for many years. I 

 should have mentioned the Age, as an older established 

 coach, before these, but their origin arising from Goodman's 

 surliness they followed the Times. The Age was started by 

 Mr. Stephenson, a gentleman by birth. I suppose I must have 

 seen him, but cannot say ; his face and figure are familiar to 

 me from the old coloured print of him standing by the side of 

 his four greys in Castle Square just going to mount the box. 

 Those connected with the Age that I remember well were Sir 

 St. Vincent Cotton, a Cambridgeshire baronet, and Jack Willan, 

 and on the baronet's retirement, Willan and Brackenbury 

 Bob I think his name was ; he was the elder of two brothers, 

 the younger of whom drove the London and Windsor Taglioni 

 a few years later. The Age left both ends at noon, and took 

 about five and a quarter hours. It .was a very favourite coach, 

 well horsed and driven, and all three coachmen were very 

 popular. All these coaches ran to Brighton by the Elephant 

 and Castle, Brixton Hill, Streatham, Croydon, Smitham Bottom, 

 Red Hill, and Horley, and most of them by Crawley, Hicksted, 

 Piecombe, and Patcham to Brighton ; but some from Horley 

 came by Cuckfield and Clayton Church to Piecombe, and 

 so on. 



Many coaches ran by Tooting, Sutton, Walton Heath, by 

 Reigate, Hookwood Common, Crawley, and Hand Cross to 

 Brighton ; others by Smitham Bottom and Redhill to Reigate, 

 and others again by Ewell, Leatherhead, Mickleham, Burford 

 Bridge, Dorking, Horsham, by Henfield to Brighton ; but this 

 route was 61 miles as against 52^ the other way. Still there 

 were passengers and fish and parcels to carry, so that, as all 



