CHAPTER IX 



COACH -PROP HIE TORS 



None among the servants of the jnihlic earned 

 their livini,^ more hardly, or took greater risks in 

 the ordinary way of business, than the coach pro- 

 prietors. It was a business in Avhich the few — 

 the very few — became rich, and the majority lived 

 a strenuous life, with empty pockets at the end 

 of it. It was very truly said of them, as a class, 

 that they lived hard, worked hard, swore hard, 

 and died hard. To this was sometimes added 

 that they held hard, by which you are to under- 

 stand that what money they did succeed in getting 

 they grasped tightly. This last Avas, however, by 

 no means a characteristic of the majority, Avho 

 very often dissipated what they had made by 

 successful ventures on one road by disastrous 

 competition on another. There was never a more 

 S2)eculative business than that of a coach pro- 

 prietor, and never one so cursed with insane 

 competition. Why embittered rivalries of this 

 kind should have been more common on the road 

 than in any other line is only to be explained by 

 the hypothesis that a certain element of sporting 

 emulation entered into it ; and a kind of foolish 

 pride that impelled a man to put and keep a line 



