DAJVN OF THE COACHING AGE 65 



from that doomed city had heen struck down l^y 

 the deadly and mysterious disease, and at Norwich 

 itself travellers hailing from the centre of 

 infection had died, swiftly and in circumstances 

 that struck terror into the hearts of the people. 

 Not that plagues were things unknoAvn ; for 

 Hohson, the Caml)ridge carrier, had died from the 

 vexation and enforced idleness of the Camhridge 

 edict of 1631, forbidding intercourse with London, 

 even then ravaged with an infectious disorder. 



What were the first stage-coaches like ? 



If we are to credit Taylor's description of 

 the earliest coaches, some of them must have 

 resembled the present Irish jaunting-car, or 

 Bianconi's mid-nineteenth century coaches, in the 

 manner of carrying passengers. He tells us, in 

 his fanciful way, that a coach, "like a perpetual 

 cheater, wears two bootes and no spurs, some- 

 times having tAvo pairs of legs to one boote, and 

 oftentimes (against nature) it makes faire ladies 

 weare the boote ; and if you note, they are carried 

 back to back, like people surprised by pyrats, to 

 be tyed in that miserable manner, and thrown 

 overboard into the sea. Moreover, it makes j^eople 

 imitate sea-crabs, in being drawn sideways, as 

 they are when they sit in the boot of the coach ; 

 and it is a dangerous kind of carriage for the 

 commonwealth, if it be considered." This boot, 

 or this pair of boots — which did not in the least 

 resemble, in shape or position, the fore and hind 

 boots of a later age — was a method of carrying 

 the outsides in days before the imj^rovement of 

 VOL. I. 5 



