An Old Coachman's Chatter, with Some Practical Remarks on DrivingCorbett, Edward
History
An Old Coachman's Chatter, with Some Practical Remarks on Driving
Corbett, Edward
Coaching (Transportation); Driving of horse-drawn vehicles
"The mail contained bags for Howden and London, Howden and York,
and Selby and York. I have informed the surveyors of the robbery,
and have forwarded handbills this night to be distributed in the
country, and will take care to insert it in the first paper
published here. Waiting your further instructions, I remain with
respect, Sir,
"Your Obliged and Obedient Humble Servant,
"THOS. OLDFIELD."
Although two hundred pounds' reward was offered nothing more was ever
found out about this transaction for about eighty years, when the
missing bag was discovered in a very unexpected manner, which is so
well described in a notice contained in the _Daily Telegraph_
newspaper of August 24th, 1876, that I cannot do better than give
their account. After describing the nature of the robbery it goes on
to say, "So the matter rested for nearly eighty years, and it would
probably have been altogether forgotten but for a strange discovery
which was made a few days ago. As an old wayside public-house,
standing by the side of the high road near Selby, in a district known
as Churchhill, was being pulled down, the workmen found in the roof a
worn and rotten coat, a southwester hat, and a mail bag marked Selby.
This led to further search, and we are told that in digging fresh
foundations on the site of the old hostel, a large number of skeletons
were found, buried at a small distance beneath the surface. There can
be no doubt that in what were affectionately known as 'good old
times,' strange scenes occurred at road-side inns, especially on the
great roads running north and west from London. The highwaymen of
those days were a sort of local Robin Hood, and were only too often on
best of terms with the innkeepers. Nothing, indeed, is more likely
than for the relic of the highwayman's plunder to be brought to light
from out of the mouldering thatch of an old wayside inn. The
unearthing of the skeletons is a more serious matter, and looks as if
the Selby hostel had, as many old houses have, a dark history of its
own."
The existence of the skeletons was, however, accounted for by
archæologists in a more natural, if less sensational manner. They
arrived at the conclusion that the spot had been the site of a very
old Christian burial ground, whence called Churchhill; and this
opinion would appear to be borne out by the fact of the skeletons
having been encased in a very primitive sort of coffin, consisting of
nothing more than the trunk of a tree, which had been sawn asunder and
hollowed out to receive the body, the two halves being afterwards
closed together again. If they had been the victims of foul play, they
would probably have been buried without any coffins at all.
The old mail bag, after some dispute about ownership, came into the
possession of the Post-Office, and is to be seen in the library of
that establishment at the present time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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