464 HIGHWAYS AND HORSES. 



Yet in point of comfort for inside passengers a coach 

 compares very unfavourably with a private omnibus, 

 but an omnibus has no outside seat suitable for grooms 

 or guard ; besides which it cannot carry the same 

 number of persons outside, and as for appearance, 

 however well built, it cannot compare with a coach. 

 Why this is, it is difficult to say ; possibly our eyes 

 have become so accustomed to a coach in connection 

 with four horses, that we can tolerate no other vehicle, 

 whilst an omnibus is associated in our minds with a 

 public street conveyance, with a ride all the way from 

 Charing Cross to the Bank for twopence, with such 

 frequent stoppages to take up passengers that a very 

 natural contempt for this pottering mode of progression 

 fills our minds. However this may be, a coach, for the 

 reasons I have named, is preferable to an omnibus ; 

 but lately 1 saw a very excellent elevation drawing of 

 what may be called a station brougham, patented by 

 Messrs. Cockshoot & Co., of Manchester. 



It is in my opinion a most excellent carriage, but 

 with carriages and harness, as I have before remarked, 

 one has to overcome very strong conservative pre- 

 judices which stand in the way of their adoption ; the 

 fact of being seated in any strange vehicle and forced 

 to remain still, deprived of the power of volition, the 

 observed of all observers, is particularly repugnant and 

 distressing to the feelings of civilised mankind, 

 especially to Englishmen. The first man who carried 

 an umbrella must have been possessed of greater 

 courage than the winner of a Victoria Cross, although 

 the quality, or rather the nature of such courage was 

 scarcely the same. 



It is uncertain who the person was who evinced 

 this remarkable resolution, although an umbrella was 



