238 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



tlieni were the Bicester " llegulator," the Boston 

 " Perseverance," and the Leicester and Market 

 Harborough " Convenience " — names that do not 

 spell speed. Even his Aylesbury " Despatch " 

 Avas a slow affair, reaching- that town in six hours, 

 at the rate of six and a half miles an hour. 



Many great coach-proprietors were established 

 in the chief provincial towns. Bretherton, of 

 Liverpool, described by Chaplin as " an exceed- 

 ingly opulent man," A^^etherald, at Manchester, 

 Teather, of Carlisle, AVaddell, at Birmingham, 

 are names that stand forth prominently. The 

 cross-country rivalry between these men was quite 

 as bitter as that Avliich raged among the Londoners, 

 and, although with the lapse of time the exact 

 explanation of the following extraordinary epitaph 

 on a coach-proprietor of Bolton, Lancashire, cannot 

 be given, it is doubtless to 1)e found in one of 

 these business feuds : — 



" Sacred to the Memory of Frederic Webb, Coach Proprietor, 

 of the firm of Webb, Houlden, & Co., of Bolton, who departed 

 this Hfe the 9th December, 18"25, aged 23 years. Not being 

 able to combat the malevolence of his enemies, who sought his 

 de.^truction, he was taken prematurely from an affectionate loving 

 wife and infant child, to deplore the loss of a good husband, 

 whose worth was unknown, and who died an honest man.'" 



The inference intended to be drawn was 

 obviously that the others Avere not honest inen ; 

 l)ut, honest or not, they are all gone to their 

 account, and the Avorld has forgotten them and 

 their contentions. Only the stray historian of these 

 things comes upon tlieir infrequent footmarks, 

 and wonders greatly at their elemental ferocity. 



