INN YARDS AND STABLES. loi 



adjust the skid ; or, taking his long horn out of the 

 basket, blow a blast on it that, beginning" faintly, ended 

 loud enough to wake the most determined sleeper or 

 the most sluggish of stablemen, who, as the coach 

 approached, were found standing in the road with four 

 fresh horses ready and fit to go. Notwithstanding that 

 the days of coaching were the days when horses were 

 most extensively used, yet less attention was paid 

 to stable accommodation and fittings in those days than 

 is now universally the rule ; the manufacture of iron 

 goods had not made sufficient progress at that time to 

 be used extensively in the construction of stables. 

 Architects, too, had not thought it worth their while 

 to study stable architecture, or they thought it beneath 

 their dignity to do so, except it were the stables of 

 some great nobleman or a prince of the blood royal, 

 and even in these stables the improvements which now 

 exist were wanting and the sanitary arrangements 

 were very defective. They were ill-lighted, with low- 

 pitched roofs and narrow doorways. I am my- 

 self personally acquainted with hundreds of them ; 

 and there are two, with which I am perhaps better 

 acquainted than others, as they are but a short distance 

 from my house — these are the "George Hotel" at 

 Winchester, and the " Dolphin " at Southampton — both 

 no doubt were called inns fifty years ago ; but, like other 

 places of the kind, they have adopted the new word 

 " Hotel," which is of French derivation. When you 

 have described the stables of one of these old inns, 

 you have described them all, although some may be 

 more pleasantly situated than others. Bear in mind, I 

 do not refer to inn stables in hunting countries, as in 

 that case the existence of extensive stablino- is not 

 due to the coaches, but to the demand for stabling to 



