192 HIGH IV AYS AND HORSES. 



A fly is also a hackney-carriage ; it is a contraction 

 of " fly-by-night," as sedan-chairs on wheels used to be 

 called during the Regency. These fly-by-nights were 

 patronised greatly by George, Prince of Wales, and his 

 companions, during their stay at Brighton, and were 

 invented in 1809, by John Butcher, a carpenter of Jew 

 Street. 



Hackney-carriages in use in country towns are fre- 

 quendy called " flys ;" the word " fly " is, as I have said, 

 a contraction, 



Tobias Hobson was the first man in England who 

 let out hackney-horses ; he was a carrier of Cambridge, 

 apparently well-to-do, since his biographer says that he 

 made a much greater fortune than a thousand men 

 educated in that University ever acquired, or were 

 capable of acquiring. The following account was given 

 of hini in the Spectator : 



" Mr. Tobias Hobson was a very honourable man, 

 for we ever shall call the man so who gets an estate 

 honestly. He was a carrier, and being a man of great 

 abilities and invention, saw where there might good 

 profit arise, though duller men overlooked it ; this 

 ingenious man was the first in this island who let out 

 hackney-horses. He lived at Cambridge, and ob- 

 serving that the scholars rid hard, his manner was to 

 keep a large stable of horses, with boots, bridles, and 

 whips, to furnish the gentlemen at once, without going 

 from college to college to borrow, as they have done 

 since the death of this worthy man. Mr. Hobson 

 kept a stable of forty good cattle, always ready and 

 fit for travelling ; and when a man came for a horse, 

 he was led into the stable, where there was great 

 choice ; but he obliged him to take the horse which 

 stood next to the stable door, so that every customer 

 was alike well served according to his chance, and 



