146 TtlE COACHING AGE. 



among the London coacli and mail proprietors, 

 Benjamin Worthy Home. He did a considerable 

 business at his three coaching inns, having coaches on 

 nearly all the roads, travelling, as he said, all distances 

 from twenty -five to more than two hundred miles ; • 

 the twenty-five miles being the Dorking coach, the 

 only one he had that carried six inside, and the two 

 hundred miles would be the Liverpool ' Umpire.' 'He 

 horsed five mails — the Gloucester, Chester, Dover, 

 Stroud, and Hastings— sonae of them wholly out of 

 London, and some in conjunction with other London 

 men. 



He had also the foreign mail, known as the ' Dover 

 Auxiliary Mail,' leaving London on Tuesday and 

 Friday nights only, and carrying the foreign maU^. 

 It was an ordinary stage-coach, unlike, the regular 

 mails, and was provided by Home himself If it 

 happened to be in Dover when the foreign mail 

 packet arrived, it brought up the bags; but if not, 

 they were forwarded by mail-cart. 



Home said he believed his father, William Home, 

 had the credit of setting the first example of speed in 

 the mails and coaches with a coach up and down from 

 Brighton, and he was the man who said that in his 

 opinion the mails went too fast. They travelled 

 so fast that they continually met with accidents on 

 dark nights, his coach having unfortunately killed a 



