THE LATER COACHMEN 237 



practised upon the weak and unoffending— upon 

 some poor friendless Avoman travelling with but 

 little money, and perhaps a brace of hungry 

 children with her, or upon some thin and half- 

 starved man travelling on the hind part of the 

 coach from London to Liverpool, with only 

 eighteen-j^ence in his pocket to defray his ex- 

 penses on the road ; for as the insolence of these 

 knights was vast, so was their rapacity enormous ; 

 they had been so long accustomed to have crowns 

 and half-crowns rained upon them by their 

 admirers and flatterers that they would look at a 

 shilling, for which many an honest labourer was 

 happy to toil for ten hours under a 1)roiling sun, 

 with the utmost contempt ; would blow upon it 

 derisively, or fillip it into the air before they 

 pocketed it; but when nothing was given them, 

 as Avould occasionally happen — for how could they 

 receive from those who had nothing ? and nobody 

 was bound to give them anything, as they had 

 certain wages from their employers — then what 

 a scene Avould ensue ! Truly, the brutality and 

 rapacious insolence of English coachmen had 

 reached a climax ; it Avas time that these felloAvs 

 should be disenchanted, and the time — thank 

 Heaven !— Avas not far distant. Let the craven 

 dastards Avho used to curry favour Avith them, and 

 applaud their brutality, lament their loss noAv that 

 they and their vehicles have disappeared from the 

 roads." 



Here the Borrovian fury overreaches itself, and 

 fails to convince the reader of that brutality of 



