POST-CHAISES AND POST-BOYS. 223 



adverbially for swiftly, expeditiously. To travel with 

 post-horses means to travel with speed ; to ride post is 

 to be employed to carry despatches, and as such 

 carriers rode in haste, the phrase '•' Post " signifies to 

 ride in haste, to pass with expedition. 



Posting means, travelling by means of horses hired 

 at different stations on the line of journey ; postillion 

 is derived from the French, and post-boy has always 

 been the more usual term used when speaking of the 

 men employed to ride hired post-horses in England. 

 A post-chaise is a carriage for conveying travellers 

 from one station to another ; the term post-haste, has 

 been derived from travelling with speed. Posting- 

 houses, are houses where relays of horses are kept 

 for the convenience of travellers. 



Before the days of railroads, there were six ways by 

 which persons could be conveyed on the high-road : 

 they could travel by mail-coach, by stage-coach, 

 travel with their own carriages and horses, or with 

 their own carriage and post-horses, or ride on horse- 

 back, or, if poor and of the lower class, they could 

 journey by the slow stage-waggon. As regards the 

 regular post-chaise and the private travelling-carriages 

 then in use, they were very similar to the carriage 

 which the present generation knows as a chariot, but 

 without the coach-box and the huge hammer-cloth ; 

 in fact, it was like a large single brougham hung on 

 very high C springs, with a dash-board before the 

 front window where, in a chariot, the coach-box would 

 have been situated. 



Why the term "jolly" should ever have been 

 applied to a post-boy, it is difficult to say. In my 

 opinion a post-boy's life must have been a very trying 

 one ; the very fact of being wedged in between a 



