THE OLD EXGLAND OF COACHING DAYS 331 



l)een reserved for the London " hooligan," who 

 has been tanght hetter, to perj)etrate, in the very 

 centre of civilisation, the barliarous methods of the 

 nninstructed peasantry of generations ago. 



Stories like these are only incredible when the 

 circumstances of the age are unknown. In times 

 when a stranger might easily enough prove to be a 

 highwayman, or at the very least some Govern- 

 ment emissary intent upon collecting hearth- 

 money, window-tax, or one of the very many 

 duties then levied upon necessaries of life, a 

 strange face might be that of an enemy, and at 

 any rate was unlikely to be that of a friend. 

 Sightseers were unknown. No one stirred from 

 home if he could find an excuse for staying by his 

 own fireside. "What do you Avant here?" asked 

 th(^ Welsh peasants of the earliest tourists ; and 

 declined to believe them when they said they 

 journeyed to view the Welsh mountains. " Eor 

 Christianity's sake, help a poor man ! " implored 

 an early traveller in Scotland, fainting by the 

 Avay. The door was slammed in his face. 

 " Surely you are Christians ? " exclaimed the 

 unhappy man. "There are no Christians here," 

 replied the half -savage Scot : " we are all Grants 

 and Erasers." That last is, perha2)s, rather a 

 savagely humorous than a true story, Ijut the 

 mere existence of it is significant. More authentic 

 — nay, well established — is the statement that 

 even so late as 17i9, in Glasgow, two people of 

 the same name Avould commonlv be distinguished 

 by some physical p(»culiarity ; or else, if one was 



