66 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



roads rendered it possible for any one to ride on 

 the roof without incurring the danger of being 

 flung off. No illustration of this type of coach 

 has ever been found, but it seems possible that 

 the back-to-back boots, to carry four, were built 

 on to the hinder part of the coach, and really 

 formed the first attem2)t to carry outsides. 



This type of coach described by Taylor must 

 have been freakish and ephemeral. Those in 

 general use were very different, resembling in 

 their construction the private carriages and 

 London hackney-coaches of the lime, and vary- 

 ing from them only in being built to hold a 

 number of peojDle — usually six, but on occasion 

 eight. In Sir Robert Howard's comedy. The 

 Committee, printed in 1665, the Reading coach 

 brings six passengers to London. 



The body was covered with stout leather, 

 nailed on to the frame with broad-headed nails, 

 whose shining heads, gilt or silvered, picked out 

 the general lines of the structure, and were 

 considered to give a pleasing decorative effect. 

 Windows and doors were at first unknown. In 

 their stead were curtains and wooden shutters, 

 so that the interior of an early coach on a wet 

 or chilly day, when the curtains were drawn, 

 must have been a close and dismal place. It 

 was this feature that gave Taylor an opportunity 

 of comparing a coach with a hypocrite : "It is 

 a close hypocrite, for it hath a cover for knavery 

 and curtains to vaile and shadow any wickedness." 

 The first vehicle with glass windows was the 



