86 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DA YS OF YORM 



sitting upright, as naked as ever he was horn.' 

 'O J — sus!' cried the lady; 'a naked man! 

 Dear coachman, drive on and leave him ! ' " 



Howlandson shows that in 1783 six horses were 

 still used, and that a postilion continued to ride 

 one of the leaders. It was about this same period 

 that the generally misquoted remark about the 

 ease of driving a coach-and-six through an Act of 

 Parliament grew proverbial. It had originated so 

 early as 1689, when Sir Stephen Kice, Chief Baron 

 of the Irish Exchequer and a bigoted Papist, 

 declared for James the Second, and was often 

 heard to say he would drive a coach and six horses 

 through the Act of Settlement. Later generations, 

 knowing nothing of six horses to a coach, and 

 unused to seeing more than four, unconsciously 

 adapted the saying to the practice of their own 

 times. 



