198 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



tliat clay Avere always few wliilc coacliing lasted. 

 The tradition was weaker on the Brighton Eoad 

 than elsewhere. That was a fashionahle road, and 

 fashion has ever heen irreligious, leaving the 

 people outside its ranks to he the hulwarks of the 

 Seventh Day. Thus we find the first Sunday 

 coach hetAveen London and Brighton estahlished 

 in 1792. 



The Sunday Trading Act has never heen 

 wholly repealed, and it is still possihle for sour 

 and malignant persons to intervene, under the 

 ready cloak of religious and Sahhatarian feeling, 

 and to lay information against shopkeepers who 

 open on Sundays, and so cause the tohacconists, 

 the hairdressers and newsagents, who commonly 

 continue their husiness on that day, to he sum- 

 moned and fined for every such ofPence. The Act 

 only generally comprehended hackney-coaches, 

 hut that term included the stages, which were 

 thus penalised until 1710, when, hy the 9th of 

 Anne, c. 23, hackney-coachmen and chairmen 

 might ply. 



It is a curious and notcAvorthy point ahout this 

 ohsolescent Act that Avhen an information is laid 

 the police have no optional course. They must 

 issue a summons, Avhile the magistrates are hound 

 to fine offenders on their heing convicted. It 

 depends, hoAvever, upon the character and the 

 prejudices of the hench Avhether the penalty may 

 he a merely nominal one, carrying an implied 

 disapproval of the informer's action, or the full 

 statutory fine of 5s. and costs. We here ohserve 



