498 THE COACHING AGE. 



great rapidity with which, coaches are hurried along, 

 iind the manner in which they are made to work 

 together, had greatly diminished the advantages that 

 coaches could produce to an inn. That very fre- 

 quently an opposition was carried on by the old 

 coach-masters from a sort of attachment to the road, 

 a desire to keep it to themselves, and a spirit of party 

 against all intruders, and they had sometimes lost 

 large sums of money.' 



He further gave an instance of an attempt by a 

 joint-stock company to establish a coach on a road 

 down in the North. It was composed of persons not 

 at all connected with the business, nor with the inns 

 on the road. It was an attempt to create a new 

 era in coaching. They fancied there was an unwhole- 

 some system adopted by the innkeepers who were 

 the chief coach-proprietors ; but after carrying on their 

 concern for about a year and a half, the company 

 gave it up, having incurred a loss of niany thousand 

 pounds. 



They did not find their own horses, but contracted 

 for the working of the coach at so much a mile ; and 

 there was more money paid to the contractors than 

 the company was receiving, after paying the expenses 

 of tolls, duty, and so on, so that they were necessarily 

 losing a large sum of money constantly, and the 

 concern wholly failed. 



