92 MOURNING COACHES. 



gentlemen and respectable persons to travel by them. 

 This probably gave the first fillip to coach-propri- 

 etors, who soon saw it would be their interest to do 

 their work better, and they did so. I should say 

 that Kirby's Chichester coach was perhaps the first 

 (or nearly so) really well appointed coach on the 

 road. As coaches improved, so did coachmen, and 

 consequently the class of persons who travelled by 

 them. Then came the four-in-hand rage. These 

 amateurs, whenever they saw a superior man as a 

 coachman, noticed him, this produced further reform- 

 ation in the manners of coachmen. Gentlemen then 

 began to secure the box-seat ; and then came on ob- 

 servations on the merits or demerits of the team, the 

 harness, &c. All this was carried by the coachman 

 to the coach-owner, who consequently began to feel a 

 laudable pride in his turns-out, got superior men on 

 all his coaches ; and when such men as Lord Sefton, 

 Sir H. Peyton, Mr. Agar, Mr. Ward, cum multis aliis, 

 condescended to notice a coachman or patronise his 

 coach, the fame of that coachman and coach was 

 established. It was in fact to the encouragement 

 such men gave where they saw encouragement was 

 deserved, that the public are (I am sorry to add I 

 must now say were) indebted for the speed, comfort, 

 and safety with which they were enabled to travel by 

 public conveyances. Then, when this business had 

 arrived as near perfection as perhaps it could be 

 brought, came that curse or blessing, as the future 

 will show, to mankind steam ; and here for the 

 present, so far as coaching is concerned, ends the 

 drama. 



"We must now mention the private gentleman's 

 coachman ; and here is another class of men, who, 



