72 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



country gentlemen up to London on the slightest 

 pretext — sometimes to get their hair cut — with 

 their wives accompanying them ; and when they 

 were hoth come to town, they would " get fine 

 clothes, go to plays and treats, and by these means 

 get such a habit of idleness and love for pleasure 

 that they are uneasy ever after. 



" Travelling in these coaches can neither prove 

 advantageous to men's health or business, for 

 Avhat advantage is it to men's health to be called 

 out of their beds into their coaches an hour before 

 day in the morning, to be hurried in them from 

 place to place till one, two, or three hours within 

 night, insomuch that sitting all day in the summer 

 time stifled with heat and choked with dust, or in 

 the winter time starving or freezing with cold, or 

 choked Avith filthy fogs ? They are often brought 

 to their inns by torchlight, when it is too late to sit 

 up to get a sujiper, and next morning they are 

 forced into the coach so early that they can get no 

 breakfast. What addition is this to men's health 

 or business, to ride all day with strangers often- 

 times sick, or with diseased persons, or young 

 children crying, to whose humours they are obliged 

 to be subject, forced to bear with, and many times 

 are j^oisoned with their nasty scents, and crip2:)led 

 by the crowd of their boxes and bundles ? Is it 

 for a man's health to travel with tired jades, to be 

 laid fast in the foul ways and forced to wade up to 

 the knees in mire, afterwards to sit in the cold 

 till teams of horses can be sent to pull the coach 

 out ? " 



