224 HIGHWAYS AND HORSES. 



hard ash pole and a horse's side, holding in your 

 hands the reins, not of one horse, but of two, must 

 have been exceedingly trying and anything but jolly ; 

 besides which, when the roads were dusty, the dust 

 kicked up by the horses' heels must have been more 

 than sufficient to suffocate any properly-constituted 

 human being, whose larynx was of mere ordinary 

 capacity. Perhaps at the end of his journey, under 

 the reviving influence of capacious draughts of ale, 

 the features of these old boys might have relaxed 

 sufficiently to entitle them to their youthful appellation, 

 they might have been induced to kick their heels 

 in the merry dance, or in some tap-room lift in song 

 the boyish voices that had grown discordant with dust, 

 beer, and age. Whilst in wet weather they must have 

 looked like drowned rats, the only protection afforded 

 them against pouring rain being short capes just cover- 

 ing their shoulders, but leaving their knees, thighs, 

 and arms exposed to the full force of the elements. 



These are mere idle conjectures ; sufficient to say 

 the term "jolly post-boy" is one for which the past, 

 and not the present, generation is responsible. The 

 idea of any full-grown man being called a boy, is 

 sufficiently ridiculous of itself without going still further 

 and taking it for granted that, in addition to this, he 

 possessed convivial and festive qualities of so high an 

 order that they caused him to be described as jolly. 



The custom of riding postillion has always appeared 

 to me wrong from a humanitarian point of view ; a 

 horse that is employed in draught has enough to 

 do without, in addition to this, being made to carry 

 a weight, which is in itself sufficient to tax his powers 

 of endurance. When going downhill a wheel-horse 

 has quite enough to do in keeping a carriage back 



