108 • DAMAGES 



as much an acknowledgment of their merits as it was 

 an encouragement of their manly and engaging art — 

 although now and then less worthy motives than those 

 of deserving the approbation of their patrons would give 

 admission to some few black sheep. 



Tn London I was treated with every mark of kindness 

 and familiarity by the owner of the establishment, as if 

 he really wished to make up for former neglect. He 

 seldom missed an evening of joining me in the coffee- 

 room, and conversing with me on indifferent subjects ; at 

 other times on things more immediately connected with 

 his own business on various roads, but chiefly on that 

 in Avhich I was now most interested. 



It so happened that there had been an accident the 

 preceding winter to the Lynn coach — that is, the coach 

 that ran the alternate days — by which a young lady had 

 received some little injury, for which her father demanded 

 compensation, and would willingly have accepted £50 for 

 damages sustained. This was indignantly refused by the 

 Cambridge proprietor, to whom the matter was left ; 

 consequently an action ensued, which was tried in 

 London, when the plaintiff obtained a verdict for £700 

 damages : thereby, with the costs — £300 more — the 

 company suffered to the enormous amount of £1000. 



It was upon this occasion I first saw the Lynn 

 proprietor,^ and a strange specimen he was of the 

 eccentricities of our nature. Should a naturalist or 

 ornithologist meet with one of the feathered tribe whose 

 distinctive features he cannot recognize in consequence of 

 their partaking of the marks of more than one species or 



^ The late Eev. Arrow. 



