238 SLANG 



hands of one man. who had inherited it from his father 

 or nncle ; and, under the masterly superintendence of 

 Richard Costar, Esq., Oxford set an example to the whole 

 kingdom, and acquired a celebrity for the advance it had 

 made in the general improvement of public conveyances. 



In this school, and under this gentleman's fostering 

 protection, some of these men had thrived, and afterwards 

 showed their gratitude by leaving his service, and 

 becoming the principal instigators of a competition, — 

 opposition it may inore properly be termed, — which 

 gained them a celebrity many of the more youthful 

 professors were anxious to acquire. These men, and such 

 as these, were sought by the London proprietors when 

 they started any new coach, whether in opposition, or to 

 some newly-discovered fashionable watering-place. 



About this time, too, a sort of flash language, called 

 slang, was very much in use, and it was considered almost 

 a necessary accomplishment, and a recommendation for 

 employment on the box, although the candidates had 

 picked it up in the purlieus of St. Giles's, and among 

 associates who were now and then unwilling pleaders at 

 the bar of the Old Bailey. It was not then thought 

 necessary to know anything of the moral condition of the 

 man — Avhether he were the husband of one wife, or lived 

 in the grossest immorality. A good outward appearance, 

 plenty of confidence, and a notoriety, it mattered not by 

 what means, or at Avhose expense, acquired, were 

 qualifications sufiicient to obtain emj)loyment in the first 

 establishments in London ; whereas the same qualifications 

 might, and did, cover others that should have conducted 

 their possessors to the penal settlements. But it will not 



