:>(> THE COACH HORSE STAGE COACHES. 



this time, it is not a matter of common occurrence, to find a thorough-shaped 

 Coach Horse, any more than one of that invaluable description of any other 

 species. We ma\ boast, however, that our coach stables are not lumbered with so 

 many of those miserable splay-footed, leggy, loose-loined, and cat-hammed ani- 

 mals, as in former days; a sort of cattle which could scarcely travel half a score 

 miles, without the risk of hewing their legs to pieces. It ought to be a material 

 consideration with breeders of coach horses, to raise them from such stock as stand 

 even IIJKMI the ground, and go perfectly clear with their legs ; and, in short, such 

 a> are not burdened with too much leg. There can scarcely indeed be a greater 

 defect in a horse for quick draught, than knocking or cutting, that is to say, the 

 lower or the speedy cut. 



We would wish, with the sincere views of caution and of general utility, to in- 

 troduce in this place, some observations on the public STAGE COACH management 

 of this country, and those numerous and perpetually recurring accidents, always 

 distressing, and so often fatal, which disgrace our public roads, and render stage 

 travelling in England scarcely a fair or prudent risk. Our first example is most 

 truly a distressing one, the late misfortune of that very eminent and diligent 

 artist, Mr. Marshall, so many elegant proofs of whose genius adorn the present 

 work. From his late letter to a friend, and we rejoice that he was sufficiently 

 recovered to be able to write, we learn that he was overturned in the Leeds Mail, 

 in his way from Newmarket to Rockingham Castle, on the 3d of September 1819, 

 b\ which accident both his legs were broken, his head terribly cut, and his back 

 greatly injured by contusion ! 



There is no country in the civilized world where so many fatal accidents have 



occurred, in travelling upon the public roads, within the last thirty years, as in 



England ; and our speed in travelling, and the concomitant risks, are equally the 



admiration of foreigners. It was the remark of a late German Traveller, who 



had the coin-age to be humorous upon the subject, that previously to taking place 



in an English stage-coach, a man ought to make his will, and take solemn leave of 



bis family and friends. But too well does this apply to the lamentable case of a 



gentleman, and father of a family, at Kentish Town, who lately, in his return from 



London, was, in less tban one short half hour, killed outright by the coach being 



overturned! Now really, it is a preposterous thing, scarcely consistent with the 



idea ot intellectual sanity, for mens' limbs and lives to be risked in so wanton and 



contemptible a way. An ima\oidahle accident of this kind, however fatal, would 



certainly excite no other feelings than sorrow and a due submission to the necessary 



evils of human life; but of what nature ought our reflections to be, under the 



invariable and undeniable proof that the far greater, nay, almost the entire 



number ot snch accidents, are the pure result of carelessness, worthless ness, and 



folly, in the stagecoach dri\ers, and unprincipled cupidity in the proprietors? 



With what kind of feeling would a reflecting man read over the items in detail, 



