226 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



frequently, and a usual detail of their equipment 

 was the dozen or more of whijocord points in the 

 button-hole, ready to be spliced on — an operation 

 they could perform with ease and efficiency with 

 their teeth while driving. When even the double- 

 thonged whip failed to rouse the poor brutes to 

 super-equine exertions, the " apprentice " — a kind 

 of cat o' nine tails — was brought into use, and the 

 wheelers thrashed with it. This engine of torture 

 was in later years known familiarly as the " short 

 Tommy," and was kept in reserve on many provincial 

 coaches. Among those familiar with coaching in 

 its last years, some have asserted the use of this 

 instrument up to the time when coaches themselves 

 disappeared, and others deny it. Both were right 

 and both wrong : on some roads it was on occasion 

 brought forth, while on others it was unknown. 



There were no smart coachmen before the intro- 

 duction of mail-coaches. Before coaches carried 

 the mails and the drivers became, in a sense, 

 officials and persons of importance, Avreathed 

 around with a vague atmosphere of authority, 

 your average driver took no sort of pride in him- 

 self. Nor, sui)posing the existence of one who 

 fared the roads in smart attire, could he for long 

 have kejit so gay and debonair an aj^pearance. 

 The meagreness and uncertainty of his livelihood 

 forbade it, and if those factors had been eliminated, 

 there still remained the unutterable badness of the 

 roads to discourage him, together with the longer 

 spells of driving that these earlier men knew, 

 which wearied them and rendered them careless 



