THE LATER COACHMEN 245 



The characteristics of coachmen had every 

 oj)i)oi*^^^i^i^y c>f heing well impressed uj^on box-seat 

 passengers down the long monotonous miles, and 

 their j^^culiarities have accordingly been well 

 preserved in travellers' recollections. One choice 

 spirit, who drove the Leeds " Union " from the 

 " George and Blue Boar " in Ilolhorn to Eaton 

 Socon, let his leaders down in Biggleswade street, 

 so that they broke their knees. He observed that 

 they had made a terrible "fore paw," but whether 

 that was conscious or unconscious humour remains 

 uncertain. 



A sharp distinction was drawn between London 

 and provincial coachmen, and l)etween coachmen 

 on main roads and those on by-Avays. Yorkshire 

 by-roads, in particular, were regarded Ijy coaching 

 critics, from Nimrod downwards, with contempt, 

 alike for their coaches and coachmen. Thus, one 

 tells in 1830 of a dirty coach in Yorkshire, drawn 

 by a team of " tike " horses known to the coach- 

 man by the names of Rumblcguts and Bumblekite, 

 Staggering Bob and Davey. On the cross-roads 

 of that many-acred shire the coachmen changed 

 with every stage, and cleaned and harnessed their 

 own horses. They were, in fact, in those remote 

 parts, a hundred years behind the age, and one 

 might in the nineteenth century have studied the 

 manners and customs of the early eighteenth. The 

 same thing Avas noticed by Hawker in 1812, on the 

 Glasgow and Carlisle road, Avliere the stage-coach- 

 men resembled " a set of dirty gipsies," driving but 

 one stage each, and tlien looking after their horses. 



