3io STAGE-COAGH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



the greatest indifference among coach-proprietors 

 towards his patent safety coach. His hook reflects 

 the disappointment he felt, and he enlarges npon 

 the folly of men who had, time and again, heen 

 heavy losers in paying compensation claims hy 

 injured passengers, and yet would not try the 

 merits of a vehicle Avhich would save them in 

 pocket and in anxiety. He at last gave an order 

 to a firm of coach-huilders, had one huilt to his 

 own design, and prevailed first upon one of 

 the London and Reading proprietors, and then 

 the owners of a Stroud coach, to try it. The 

 general feeling seems to have heen that it was 

 safe, but slow, and did not possess so easy a 

 draught as that of the usual build. To these 

 arguments he replied by saying that his luggage- 

 box, providing room for more goods and luggage 

 than carried on ordinary coaches, was generally 

 filled with heavy consignments sent by the Stroud 

 clothiers, and that the heaviness of draught was 

 due to that cause. But explanations of weight, 

 demonstrations of safety, and even the recom- 

 mendations he had i)rocured from a Parliamentary 

 Committee, were useless, and Milton's Patent 

 Safety Coach was never more than a fugitive 

 occupant of the road. 



But still the public, horrified by the increasing 

 number and the disastrous nature of the accidents 

 that strewed every road with groaning j^assengers, 

 were intent upon being carried safely, and so 

 various attempts were made to reassure them. So 

 many accidents had happened on the Brighton 



