56 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DA YS OF YORE 



representative. This was the " gig-" The gig 

 at once became a favourite middle-class convey- 

 ance. Thurtell, the flashy betting-man, vulgar 

 rone, and murderer, Avas thought by a witness " a 

 respectable man : he kept a gig." This aroused 

 the scorn of Carlyle, avIio coined the word 

 " gigmanity." 



The early commercial travellers, in fact, were 

 long known as "riders," from their custom of 

 riding horseback from town to town, sometimes 

 with a led pack-horse when their samples were 

 unusually Inilky or heavy. The " London riders " 

 sometimes found mentioned in old literature were 

 therefore London commercials. The successive 

 names by which these " ambassadors of commerce," 

 as they have sometimes been grandiloquently 

 styled, were known are themselves highly illumi- 

 nating. They were, in succession, "bagmen," 

 "riders," "travellers," and "commercial gentle- 

 men." They are now " representatives." 



