CHAPTER X. 



COACHING BUSINESS. 



As coaching and mail-travelling on the roads were 

 always strictly carried on as business undertakings, it 

 may not be altogether uninteresting to see something 

 of how they were managed, what were their expenses, 

 what their receipts, and how the money was divided 

 among the different proprietors. It was once said by 

 Sir Henry Parnell, M.P., who took a great deal of 

 interest in road-travelling, and acquired a great deal 

 of information about it, that it was necessary to be 

 on one's guard in listening to statements on any 

 points connected with coach business, and that he 

 would trust to nothing but the actual accounts of the 

 earnings of the different kinds of coaches, whether 

 ordinary stage-coaches, by night or day, or mail- 

 coaches. The expense, he added, actually incuired in 

 horsing the mails would be better ascertained by 

 seeing what the profits were which the proprietors 

 divided among themselves, because that would give 

 the means of ascertaining at what rate they would 



