But all this is skirting, and I must return to the scent, which was, I think, very much the sort of horses which we coachmen had to drive. They were, indeed, often a very queer lot, but they had to be driven, and were driven. Of course, four of this sort were not put all together; there were always one or two steady ones among them. But even if they had been, and all had determined to do wrong, it is most improbable that all would have gone wrong in the same way, and one could have been played off against another. This is one great advantage in four. In single harness, if the horse takes to bad ways, you have the whole team against you, but that is, as I have said, very unlikely with four. Perhaps this may account for the old saying that "half the coachmen were killed out of gigs." When I got a horse that was very troublesome, I always found that doubling him, that is, making him run his stage double, brought him to his senses in the course of a week or two. Some may say it was not right to risk the lives and limbs of the passengers, by using unruly horses, but, practically, very little danger was incurred. I will not say that no accidents ever occurred from this cause, but they were very rare. If an accident should have happened, and a life been lost from that cause, the old law of "deodand" would have touched up the proprietor's pockets severely; besides which, horses of this description were only entrusted to the hands of well-tried men. Notwithstanding all this, however, accidents did occasionally happen from this cause, and sometimes of a very serious nature, one or two of which I will now produce. The first was an exceedingly calamitous one, and I think I cannot do better than use the words of a friend of mine, who was an eye-witness to the scene, as they will be more likely to convey a full idea of the horrible appearance presented by the mingled heap of injured human beings and horses, with the coach on the top of them, than anything I can say at second hand. He says: "I was staying at the 'White Horse,' at Hockliffe, for a few days, and on the first night I was disturbed by a man knocking at the front door and shouting, 'Get up, the "Greyhound" is overturned and all the passengers are killed.' Upon hearing of this terrific slaughter," he proceeds to say, "I got up, and with others started to the scene of the catastrophe, which was about a mile and a half distant, opposite to a large mansion called 'Battleden House,' then the residence of Sir G. P. Turner, and there we found a mass of human beings and horses all of a heap. The coachman was under the coach with his leg broken, many of the passengers dangerously injured, and two horses had legs broken. It was a shocking sight to witness, and melancholy to hear the squealing of horses, and the passengers moaning."