TWADDLERS. 7 < 



line, I should say more so on the whole than on any 

 other road in England : but Smitham Bottom does 

 not last for ever, nor do the exuberant spirits of 

 horses ; and the team that requires a strong hand to 

 hold them for seven miles sometimes wants a little 

 tying up during the last two or three, if against collar, 

 good as they may be. 



Various have been the complaints made against 

 coachmen for what in a city or legal phrase is termed 

 *' furious driving," and as many have been fulminated 

 against coach-owners for employing such homicidal 

 coachmen : but let me tell these originators of such 

 complaints, that they know nothing at all about the 

 matter of which they are complaining; that their 

 twaddle is all nonsense, their animadversions in- 

 justice, and the wisest thing they can do is to hold 

 their tongue, and in future travel in an invalid chair, 

 or, as an old aunt of mine once actually did, to the 

 ridicule of the rest of her family, wend their way 

 from London to Finchley in a sedan. 



A coach-owner advertises and engages to set down 

 his passengers a hundred miles from a given place in 

 ten hours. Now those persons who expect this to be 

 done by horses trotting the whole distance at a good 

 fair pace know nothing about the thing, and have no 

 business in a fast coach. The coach-owner does not 

 guarantee or promise to set you down safely at your 

 destination (nor do they now do so by the smoke con- 

 veyance), he only engages to use every means in his 

 power to do so, and, comparatively, very few accidents 

 occur. But whoever knows any thing of coaching or 

 driving must know, that to do 100 miles at ten miles 

 an hour, and that including stoppages, part of the 

 road must be done at six, the majority of it at twelve, 



