COACH LEGISLATION 215 



and the explanation that modern commentators 

 are generally puzzled l)y both. What he was we 

 have stated ; Avhat hecamc of him Avhen railways 

 ruined coaching and his business at once, we do 

 not know. Some few details of his career have 

 survived. He originally seems to have been in 

 the employ of one Johnson, an informer, in 182i, 

 when he obtained convictions against coachmen at 

 Dover and Canterbury, and on the Brighton Eoad ; 

 but by the summer of the next year he had gone 

 into the business for himself, and presently became 

 the Napoleon of the profession. 1825 was a busy 

 year with him. In August he summoned a coach- 

 proprietor named Selby for that " on the 28tli day 

 of July he did suffer and permit a stage-coach 

 belonging to him, and drawn by two horses only, 

 to carry more than the usual number of pas- 

 sensjers on the roof." Moreover, he Avas sum- 

 moned again for not having his name painted on 

 the door of the coach. After much cross-swearing 

 and discussion, the Brighton bench fined the 

 coach-proprietor £5 and I65. costs. 



In Bath, in the November of the same year, 

 Byers laid so many as thirty-four informations. 

 The penalties to Avhich the unfortunate coach- 

 proprietors and others Avere liable in this pro- 

 digious batch were estimated at £500, but the 

 newspaper reports of that time do not tell us the 

 total of the fines actually inflicted, so we are 

 unable to form any idea of the profits realised by 

 the enterprising Byers in this Western raid. The 

 petty and tyrannical nature of the prosecutions 



