COACH-BUILDING AND HARNESS-MAKING TRADES. 309 



conveyance of their family and friends, or for the mere 

 pleasure of driving four horses. 



In accordance with these pursuits are the meetings 

 of the Four-in-Hand and Coaching Clubs. These clubs 

 were evidently intended, not only to encourage good 

 coachmanship, particularly in the driving of four 

 horses, but were also intended to prevent the practice 

 of driving a coach from becoming obsolete when the 

 regular coaches were removed from the roads. Had 

 the Four-in-Hand Club not been established, it is very 

 possible by this time that no coach would now be in 

 existence, except such as ran in remote parts of Great 

 Britain, and were never seen in the metropolis ; our 

 coach-builders would have forgotten how to build a 

 coach, instead of which coach-building has never 

 been brought to greater perfection. Smartness, 

 strength, and durability are combined in the coaches 

 produced by our best London coach-builders in such a 

 manner as was not dreamt of by the coach proprietors 

 of the old coaching days. Workmen have become 

 more skilled in every branch of the coach-building 

 trade ; whilst the productions of the manufacturers and 

 the requisite machinery have improved in like manner. 

 Harness-making, too, has made enormous strides ; 

 numberless inventions have been introduced, have 

 proved successful, and have been patented, which 

 have brought both harness and coach as near to 

 perfection as possible. 



Having said this much, I think we may now 

 embark on this chapter with a firm persuasion that 

 it will contain some matters of interest to those who 

 feel sympathy with coaching, and regard driving as 

 a healthy and manly exercise for one's muscles, if not 

 for the superior faculties of one's mind. 



