290 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



you would 1)0 going quietly or resting hy the Avay. 

 One generation of him takes away the traffic of 

 the roads ; another filches that of the railways 

 and puts the traffic on the road again in an 

 altered form. There is no finality ahout the in- 

 ventor, Avho ought, for the jieacc of the age, first 

 to he gently dissuaded, then admonished, and, in 

 the last resort, severely dealt with. Our ancestors 

 had a " quick Avay " Avith such, and discouraged 

 invention l)y jiutting inventors to death as wizards. 

 A drastic method, hut they saved themselves much 

 worry and trouhle therehy. The inventor is not 

 usually entitled to any consideration on the score 

 of working for the hencfit of humanity. So little 

 does he do so that he takes infinite care to patent 

 and to provisionally protect even his immature 

 devices. He Avorks, in short, to huild his OAvn 

 fortune. 



Apply these feelings to the case of the coach- 

 men Avho Avere horn in an age that kncAV nothing 

 of steam. Every stand-hy Avas rooted up in the 

 coming of raihvays, and the steam-engine Avas just 

 as strange a moiistcr to them as the electric 

 dynamo is to many of ourselves. Often they could 

 not transfer their allegiance to the raihvay, even 

 though they starved. It Avas iu)t ahvays stuhhorn- 

 ness or pride that held them aloof, hut a certain 

 and easily-understood lack of adaptahility that 

 forl)ade one Avho had held the reins to handle 

 the starting-lever of the locomotive. More guards 

 than coachmen transferred themselves from the 

 road to the rail, hecausc the duties Avere not so 



