178 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YOKE 



resolved to impose thorough efficiency. As he 

 was very well assured that their defects arose 

 from the cheese-paring policy of the contractors 

 themselves, he decided that the Post Office 

 must have a voice in the selection of the 

 coaches, and, having discovered what he considered 

 a suitable huild, made it a condition of the service 

 that it should he used. This officially-approved 

 new type was a " j)atent coach " by one Besant. 

 The contractors had no choice in the matter. 

 Palmer, the autocrat, had seen that Besant's 

 coaches were good, and willed it that they should 

 use none others, and so to that fortunate patentee 

 they were obliged to resort. He entered into 

 partnership with Vidler, a practical coachbuilder ; 

 and thus at Millbank, Westminster, was estab- 

 lished that mail-coach manufactory which for 

 forty years sup2)lied the mail-coaches to the mail- 

 contractors. Besant and Vidler 's terms were 

 twopence-halfpenny a double mile. Por this price 

 the coaches were hired out to the contractors and 

 kept in repair. The practice was for Vidler's men 

 to take over the mail-coaches after they had 

 entered the G-eneral Post Office in the morning, 

 on the completion of their up journeys, and to 

 drive them to Millbank, where they were cleaned 

 and greased, and delivered to the various con- 

 tractors' coach-yards in the afternoon. 



On December 2nd, 1791, Besant died. He 

 was, we are told, " an honest, worthy man, and 

 the mechanical Avorld sustains a great loss by his 

 death. His ingenuity was in various instances 



