Related article: perhaps minor matters we are
equally in the dark. I have at
different times come across seven
or eight very old coachmen, men
who drove in the *• twenties " and
** thirties" and have cross-exam-
ined them on matters of procedure,
the cross-examination being based
on the directions given to me by
comparatively modern professors.
All our text books tell us to keep
our left hand fairly high — practice
does not always accord with pre-
cept. The old fellows, however,
have told me that they let their
left hand lie on their lap, driving
with the straight arm as recom-
mended by Colonel Edward Cor-
bett in his book •• An Old Coach-
man's Chatter." When these
ancient professors were asked
about shortening any one rein or
I90I.]
OLD TIMB COACH DRIVING.
343
all four of them, they invariably
replied that ihere was one way
only that they knew of, and that
v^as by pulling back the reins from
behind the left hand. This plan,
however, is nowadays voted bad
form, the proper way to shorten
the reins, according to modern
notions, in the event of their
Avanting shortening which some
people Sporanox Price say should never be the
case, being to push them Cheap Sporanox back
"with'the right hand in front of the
left, the only exception being
that it is permissible to pull them
all back from behind; while it is
also allowable to pull back the off-
"wheel rein, the bottom of the four,
in the same way. Who first made
the pushing back of the reins de
tigueur^ or who first invented the
loop in pointing the leaders to turn
a corner, cannot be discovered.
The old coachmen neither short-
ened their reins nor turned a
corner in the modern fashion, for
we hear nothing of the loop until
long after "Nimrod's" time, and
he wrote in the ** thirties."
The amateur driving question
came up in the old days as it does
now, for like Mr. Green, sen., the
father of Verdant Green, some of
the passengers of old did not
believe in being driven by the
Mr. **Four-in-hand*Foobroke**of
the day. So long ago as 1798
there appear to have been some
ambitious amateurs, as in that
year the coachman and guard of
the Wisbech mail Buy Sporanox Online - coach were
convicted at the Cambridge
Quarter Sessions for having per-
mitted *' a gentleman of the
University of Cambridge " to
** drive the carriage." This un-
dergraduate, however, does not
appear to have possessed the
skill of Mr. Stephenson, the Cam-
bridge graduate who afterwards
drove on the Brighton road, for
the Wisbech mail was overturned,
and a woman was much hurt;
but on all expenses being paid,
and reparation being made to the
injured passenger, the coachman
and guard were merely repri-
manded and discharged. In 1836
the Liverpool and Hull coach had
a narrow Sporanox Online escape from coming to
grief at the hands of an amateur,
who Order Sporanox was making his first essay at
driving a team. One of the pro-
prietors, Mr. Charles Wardell,
was on the box seat to look Sporanox Cost out
for squalls, and when going down
Welton Hill, on which there is
an exceedingly awkward turn,
cautioned his companion how to
make the turn, and to be careful ;
but the amateur managed to bring
the leaders' heads up against the
coach, so off jumped Mr. Wardell
to run to the leaders' heads, and
so save a capsize ; but one of the
horses knocked him down, and he
broke his leg.
It was common enough for
amateurs to drive at one time, as
the Duke of Beaufort, Captain
Malet, Mr. Birch Reynardson, Sporanox BuySporanox Tablets
** Sporanox 100mg Nimrod," and others, tell us,
while we know that such coach-
men as a former Sir Watkin
Wynn, Lord Tollemache, Lord
Kenyon, and a host of other re-
nowned amateurs, were accus-
tomed to put on their driving
gloves. For any one, however,
except the proper coachman to
drive, at least without the leave
of the proprietor, was a breach of
regulations. Consequently, men
like Byers, the ** arch -informer,"
were on the look-out for these
matters, and laid informations,
receiving half the penalty should
conviction follow. The coachmen,
however, were equal to the occa-
sion, for, if they found the in-
former about, they induced some
friend to lay similar information
at another office, and they some-
how managed that the summons
should take precedence of that first
issued. The coachman would
344
BAILY S MAGAZINE.
IMat
plead guilty to the facts alleged
against him : his friend, as in-
former, would take half the
penalty, which he would promptly
divide with the coachman, who
thereupon escaped with a miti-
gated penalty, and what is more
to the purpose, kept the pro-
fessional informer out of his share
of the plunder.
Whatever merits the old coach-
man may have possessed, careful-
ness does not invariably appear to
have been one of them, for there
are literally hundreds, if not
thousands, of accidents attributed
to carelessness and racing. This
was so as long ago as the end of
the eighteenth century, when a
passenger who could drive wrote
a letter to the press pointing out
that numbers of people were de-
terred from riding on or in the
mail coaches, and not without
reason, for he averred that eight
out of ten accidents which hap-
pened were caused by the coach- Buy Sporanox
man's negligence, and he then
proceeded to give an instance.
At about one o'clock in the morn-
ing the Liverpool mail was run-
ning between Hockliffe and Dun-
stable. The Chester Sporanox 200 Mg and Leeds
coaches were in front, and were
travelling at about seven miles an
hour ; Purchase Sporanox but this rate did not satisfy
the coachman of the Liverpool
mail. So he put on steam,
allowed his horses to gallop so
as to pass the two others, and
though it was moonlight, drove
into a ditch and upset the coach.
The writer of the letter was a
passenger in the Chester Sporanox Pulse coach,
saw all that happened, and helped
to set the Liverpool coach right
side up, receiving for his pains
some abusive language. If these
accidents had happened when
even the best of amateur coach-
men were driving, what would
people have said }
In connection with the many
accidents which occurred, another
letter- writer, after remarking upon