THE EARLY COACHMEN 227 



of details. Thus the stage-drivers of the era that 

 preceded the chissic age of the road Avore clumsy 

 hay-hands round their legs to protect them from 

 the cold, and, together with their many layers of 

 clothing, their top-hoots encrusted with the mud 

 of a month's journeys, and their general air of 

 untidiness, were figures of fun, in sharp contrast 

 with their hrethren of a later day, who were certain 

 of their emj^loyment, of their liheral and frequent 

 tij^s, of good roads exceedingly well kept, and of 

 their coaches and cattle heing maintained in the 

 pink of condition hy a small army of stahle-hands 

 and helpers. The poor old fellows of a hygone 

 age wore perhaps nothing but fold upon fold of 

 " comforters " round their necks, while their linen 

 did not hear insjoection. The flower of the coaching 

 age, on the other hand — the coachmen of the first 

 quarter of the nineteenth century — wore the gayest 

 and the neatest neckties as a finish to a neat and 

 striking professional costume. They Avere artists 

 alike in the management of their horses and in the 

 folding of a tie. Never a journey but they had 

 a posy in their buttonhole, and never an occasion 

 when they were not spotlessly clean, in linen, 

 top-boots, and costume generally. It was an 

 unmistakable costume, and one familiar to us now- 

 adays in its revival by modern coaching enthusiasts. 

 Box-cloth coats, fearfully and Avonderfully stitched 

 in five or six rows, and decorated with buttons of 

 an enormous size, together with white beaver hats, 

 were the most outstanding items of this marvellous 

 costume. 



