COACH PROPRIETORS. 113 



coaching is of some weight on the important subject, 

 which was often discussed, of the desirability of 

 the mail-guards being entirely paid by Government, 

 whose servants they were ; being of no service to the 

 passengers except in so far as they expedited the 

 mail on its journey by assisting to change horses at 

 places where they were not occupied in the discharge 

 of their official duties. That the passengers did not 

 appreciate this trifling assistance sufficiently to induce 

 them to fee the guards liberally may be gathered 

 from Chaplin's remarks on the subject. 



He said : ' I would suggest the propriety of letting 

 the guards of the mails be entirely dependent on the 

 Government for their support, because there is rather 

 a dearth of that spirited kind of passenger to support 

 the mails, except to such great places as Liverpool 

 and Manchester ; and I fancy it is chiefly because of 

 the expense that the guards do not go such long 

 distances with the mails as they do with the post- 

 coaches, the guards of which generally go to Manchester 

 or Liverpool, a distance of two hundred miles, while 

 the mail guards seldom exceed a distance of a hundred 

 miles ; then it becomes a heavy tax upon the 

 passenger to have two of these men to pay, and 

 if it could be borne by the Post Office it would be a 

 great inducement to many people to come by the 

 mail, who do not do so now.' 



8 



