458 THE COACHING AGE. 



dwellings, many may still be found where, for want of 

 any profitable result likely to accrue from alterations, 

 there being no demand for additional house accommo- 

 dation, the stables have remained in the same state as 

 when the traffic on the road was in full swing, save 

 only that for want of use and repair they have 

 sunk into a woefully dilapidated and melancholy 

 condition. 'We rented a ten-stall stable with 

 loft over at a farm where there were only three or 

 four cottages, the stables being about eighty or a 

 hundred yards from the road. The mail we horsed 

 was the only coach that changed there ; but in going 

 up the road in the year 1882, I found all the stables 

 had been pulled down and the ground cultivated.' 

 Such is the account given by an old coach and mail 

 proprietor. 



So far as I have by chance at difi'erent times had 

 an opportunity of looking into old coaching-stables, 

 the purposes to which they are now generally applied 

 may be thus stated : 



In a stall at the end you will most likely find a 

 calf penned up, and no other use for any of the other 

 stalls. In a stable up another yard you may find a 

 litter of puppies under the manger with their, mother. 

 Elsewhere, you may see a hen sitting in one of the 

 mangers which run the whole length of the stable, 

 the said hen being the sole occupant of a ten-stall 



