2i8 STAGECOACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



offences were, like the offences themselves, trivial. 

 In short, informing ceased to pay its travelling 

 expenses. 



Among the many enactments for the protection 

 of the puhlic Avas one forbidding all four liorses 

 galloping at the same time. Mail- contractors, 

 however, finding that they could not maintain 

 the speed necessary to fulfil their contracts 

 without galloping, generally secured a certain 

 number of exceptionally fast trotters, for Avhicli 

 they paid high prices, in order to have one in 

 every team. Such an one was pretty widely 

 known down the road as "the Parliamentary 

 horse." Proprietors of fast day coaches, however, 

 infringed this provision of the Act every day, as 

 indeed every Act was continually infringed. 



The last years of coaching were marked hy a 

 reduction in the duties on stage-carriages, long 

 urged hy the coaching interest, and introduced 

 l)y the Act of August 24th, 1839. It Avas a 

 grudging reduction, and came too late to Ije of 

 much relief to an oppressed industry. Up to 

 that date the mileage duty on passengers Avas 

 on the graduated scale of \d. a mile if licensed 

 to carry four ; \\d- if licensed for six ; 2f/. 

 for nine ; 2Jf/. for tAvelve ; M. for fifteen ; and 

 o\d. for eighteen ; Avhether running fully loaded 

 or not. It Avas ahvays open for proprietors to 

 license for more or less, according to the season 

 or their OAvn requirements ; hut, on the other hand, 

 if in vicAV of a slack season they licensed for a 

 small number and then on one of their journeys 



