DAJVJV OF THE COACHING AGE 71 



of time, know nothing. What brief John Cresset 

 coukl have hekl for the inn-keepers and horse- 

 breeders, and for the other trades supposed to be 

 injuriously affected by the increase of stage- 

 coaches, we knoAv not, nor, indeed, anything of 

 Cresset himself, except that he lived in the 

 Charterhouse. 



Between London, York, Chester, and Exeter 

 he calculated that a total number of fifty-four 

 persons travelled weekly, making a grand total 

 for those roads of 1,872 such travellers in a year. 

 A brief examination of his arithmetic shoAvs — as 

 we have already pointed out — that the coaches of 

 that age lay up for the winter months. 



His indictment of coaches is to be found in his 

 Grand Concern of England Explained, and is 

 very vigorous indeed, and — as we see it nowadays 

 — extravagantly silly : — 



" Will any man keep a horse for himself and 

 another for his servant all the year round, for to 

 ride one or two journeys, that at pleasure, when he 

 hath occasion, can slip to any place where his 

 business lies for two or three shillings, if within 

 twenty miles of London, and so proportionately 

 to any part of England ? No, there is no man, 

 unless some noble soul that seems to abhor being 

 confined to so ignoble, base, and sordid a way of 

 travelling as these coaches oblige him to, and who 

 prefers a public good before his own ease and 

 advantage, that will keep horses." 



According to this vehement counsel for the 

 suppression of stage-coaches, they brought the 



