2l8 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



requiring land lines, the wire would nowadays be 

 ready to be put in position as soon as posts could be 

 provided, armed with insulators, and planted in the 

 ground. 



However, I am not certain that even these instances 

 of speedy manufacture, remarkable as they are, beat 

 the record in other branches of industry. 



In 1811 a wager of a thousand guineas was laid 

 that wool on a sheep's back in the morning should, 

 in the form of a coat, be on a man's back by night. 

 John Coxeter, of Newbury, Berks, was the hero. Two 

 Southdowns were shorn, the w^ool spun, the yarn 

 spooled, warped, loomed, and woven, the cloth, says 

 Percy's 'Anecdotes,' 'burred, milled, rowed, dyed, 

 dried, sheared, and pressed, and put into the hands 

 of the tailors by four o'clock that afternoon, and at 

 twenty minutes past six the coat, entirely finished, 

 was presented by Mr. Coxeter to Sir John Throck- 

 morton, Bart., who appeared with it before an assem- 

 blage of five thousand spectators.' 



This, as stated, occurred in 1811, but in April, 

 1816, as though nothing of the kind had been 

 attempted in England, Brown, of Holiday Cove, in 

 the United States, reported as a novelty that he had 

 accomplished the feat within twenty-four hours. He 

 triumphantly inquired (as forty years later the same 

 question, but on widely different grounds, was asked 

 in the Crimea) : ' What will they say in England ?' 

 The reply was obvious ; the work had been done, and 

 done better and quicker, some years earlier. Then 



