COACH INSPECTORS. 115 



It appears that inspectors were sent down from 

 London and travelled on the coaches in order to 

 ascertain that all was going on right, the coachmen 

 and guards very rarely knowing whom they had with, 

 them ; but if they had any suspicion of the fact of who 

 their passenger was, the changes were never made 

 quicker and the time was never better kept. Some- 

 times some of the horse proprietors, who generally 

 kept an inn or a livery stable, and who frequently 

 supplemented this business by furnishing funeral 

 carriages, would employ these horses in the mail, 

 which would greatly displease the passengers who had 

 no fancy for being drawn along by these sepulchral- 

 looking animals, with their long tails tied up into 

 knots to keep them out of the mud, and their manes 

 plaited or hanging in absurd ringlets. 



Mr. Harris tells a tale of a costermonger who 

 possessed a very mournful-looking donkey. When 

 asked to account for the miserable and dejected 

 appearance of this humble quadruped, he replied : 

 "Yes, sir, he is a werry miserable ass. He've bin 

 a-standinof 'twixt two mourninfy-coach 'orses for a 

 fortnight, and he ain't rekivered his spirits." 



The guards of the old coaches were always pro- 

 vided with spare gear in case of accidents, and a 

 number of tools, which, if not in a chest, were in a 

 tool-basket or huddled away somewhere in the boot ; 

 then there were spare traces, spare bars, and various 

 items of harness serviceable in an emergency ; one 

 thing was scarcely ever omitted, and that was a spare 

 collar. In addition to this, in the earlier days of 

 -coaching, was a huge, bell-mouthed blunderbuss which 

 carried an immense quantity of round shot, and was 

 like a small cannon as regards size ; in fact, it was 



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