I04 STAGE-COACH AiVD MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



Street Witliiii. When the husiness was founded 

 is not on record, hut it was okl-estahlished and 

 prosperous when he succeeded to it on the death 

 of his father in 1508. Under the terms of his 

 father's will he inherited, among other things, 

 the vehicle with which tlie carrying trade was 

 conducted, the "cart and eight horses, and all the 

 harness and other things thereunto belonsrins;, 

 with the nag." It is quite evident from this that 

 one cart or waggon sufficed for all the commerce 

 between London and Cambridge at that time. If 

 he did not choose to take these things, he was to 

 have £30 instead, the equivalent of their value, 

 which — taking into consideration the fact that the 

 purchasing power of money at that time Avould be 

 about six times that of our own — was therefore 

 £180. The " nag " specified in the will was, of 

 course, the horse ridden by the waggoner by the 

 side of the eight-horse waggon team. In old prints 

 of stage-waggons we see that the waggoner did not 

 usually drive his team from the waggon holding 

 the reins, but rode a pony, and, wielding a whip 

 of formidable length, urged on the much- suffering 

 beasts through mud and ruts. 



Hobson senior had been a man of Avealth and 

 consideration, and his son increased both. In his 

 father's lifetime he had gone continually back and 

 forth with the waggon, and so continued to go until 

 his death, January 1st, 1631, in his eighty-sixth 

 year. He was, as his father had been before him, 

 not merely a carrier between Cambridge and 

 London, l)ut the only one, and specially licensed 



