414 THE COACHING AGE. 



what he coilsidered should be their proper condition. 

 To do this efiectually on the first occasion was an 

 impossibility, so the boots had to be worn with a 

 neutral sort of tint on the tops, much to the disgust 

 of the coachman, who took means to have them 

 restored immediately to the condition in which he 

 prided himself on keeping them. 



A head-porter's place at a large coaching inn was a 

 very lucrative one, and those who assisted the guards 

 in loading the coaches generally received a trifle from 

 the passengers for putting up their luggage ; and 

 indeed they looked for it, much in the same way as 

 the railway porter does now, notwithstanding ' The 

 company's servants are strictly prohibited from re- 

 ceiving gratuities, and passengers are earnestly re- 

 quested to abstain from giving them money.' It 

 used to be said that, in order to further the observance 

 of this regulation, the porters' trousers supplied by 

 the company were made without pockets. The 

 correctness of this assertion, however, I am open to 

 doubt. 



The night-coaches all left London some time before 

 the mails, which had to be loaded up by the porters, 

 the guards with the bags being taken up in the yard 

 of the General Post Office ; except the western mails, 

 and these left their City offices about half-past seven, 

 jogging quietly to the West End, with a porter 



