146 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



and resented it. Once upon a time, after the 

 gentry who plied their occupation on Hounslow 

 Heath and Einchley or Putney Commons had 

 taken toll of purse and jDOcket, travellers had gone 

 their Avay chuckling at tlie store of notes and gold 

 still safe in their boots and the lining of their 

 coats ; hut Avhen every reckless blade and every 

 discharged footman or disbanded soldier took 

 to the road, the polite highwayman of the 

 recognised robbing-places had no sooner been 

 left behind with a " good-night to you " — mutual 

 good wishes and a hearty au revoir I from Du Vail 

 or one of his brethren — than the territory of an 

 unsuspected set of ruffians was entered; rough- 

 and-ready customers, who were not content until 

 they had got the passengers' boots off, or had 

 ripped up the linings of coats and Avaistcoats, 

 and then, having taken the last stiver, bade those 

 unhajDpy passengers, with a clirsc, begone. There 

 was an even deeper depth of misery — when, thus 

 shorn and stripped, they encountered a yet more 

 rascally, more provincial and hungrier crew, who 

 in their exasperation at getting nothing, Avould 

 sometimes resort to personal violence, to vent 

 their disappointment and ill-humour. 



At this overcrowded period, a\ hen the ordinary 

 course of business failed, the highwaymen were 

 even known to practise upon one another, like 

 the Stock Exchange brokers of to-day, who, 

 when tlic pul)lic liold aloof, sharpen their wits 

 and fill their pock(;ts by professional dealings. 

 In 1758 the monotony of liighAvay robbery 



