COACH PROPRIETORS. 129 



menced running in 18 19, and continued until the 

 coaches were set aside by the locomotive. When 

 first started, it used to take twenty-five hours to 

 perform the journey, but as the roads improved it took 

 less time, until at last it was as swift as the others. 



When railroads began to be established, Sherman 

 did not evince the same foresight as Chaplin, he 

 stuck to his coaches in spite of the daily decreasing 

 traffic on the road. And it is said that the Chairman 

 of the London and Birmingham Railway, ^Ir. Glyn, 

 was treated by Sherman in such a manner when he 

 made overtures to him with regard to the transfer 

 of his carrying business from the road to the rail, 

 that arrano-ements were come to with other coach 

 proprietors ; he afterwards did business with the 

 Great Western, but it is o^enerallv understood that 

 by his pertinacious clinging to the road, he threw 

 away the chances that were offered to him of becoming 

 a larg^e raihvav- carrier, like the more fortunate and 

 more far-seeing Chaplin. 



Another large coach proprietor was Mr. Benjamin 

 Worthy Home ; he had three coaching inns, and had 

 coaches running In almost every direction. The 

 shortest distance to which he ran a coach is said to 

 have been to Dorking, which was only twenty-five miles. 

 He horsed four mail-coaches, the Gloucester, Chester, 

 Hastings, and Dover. He also horsed and ran the 

 Dover auxiliary mail leaving London on Tuesday and 

 Friday and carrying the Continental mail-bags. If 

 this coach was in Dover when the boat arrived, it 

 carried the mails on to London ; but if it had left, then 

 the mails were forwarded by mail-cart, since this 

 coach was in reality only an ordinary stage-coach. 

 When readlno- of these davs and talkino- them over 



