THE EARLY MAIL-COACHES 179 



sanctioned by the Society of Arts, many of Avliose 

 premiums were awarded to him." 



However that may have been, and although 

 to Palmer the patent coach of Besant may have 

 seemed altogether admirable, there were many 

 who condemned it and its patent springs. It is 

 apparently one of this type that is pictured by 

 Dalgety in his print of St. George's Circus, dated 

 1797. It is curious and interesting, as showing 

 a transition between the old type of coach and a 

 style yet to come. The fore boot is of the old 

 detached type, but the wickerwork basket behind 

 is discarded, and a hind boot may be observed, 

 framed to the body. The coach is hung very 

 high, and suspended at the back from iron or steel 

 arms of the pump-handle kind. This seems to be 

 the type criticised so severely by Matthew Boulton, 

 himself an engineer, in 1798, when, describing a 

 mail-coach trip from London to Exeter, he roundly 

 condemned the patent springs : — 



" I had the most disagreeable journey I ever 

 experienced the night after I left you, oAving to 

 the neAV improved patent coach, a vehicle loaded 

 with iron trappings and the greatest complication 

 of unmechanical contrivances jumbled together, 

 that I have ever Avitnessed. The coach swings 

 sideAvays, Avith a sickly sway, Avithout any vertical 

 spring ; the point of suspense bearing upon an 

 arch called a spring, though it is nothing of 

 the sort. The severity of the jolting occasioned 

 me such disorder that I was obliged to stop at 

 Axminster and go to bed very ill. HoAvever, I 



