In general the roof opened upwards, being hinged at the back. This is clearly shown in a print published in 1768, called _The Female Orators_, in which a clergyman is stepping out of his chair, and the chairmen very obviously demanding their fare. Another print published about 1786, called the _Social Pinch_, shows a very famous chairman, Donald Kennedy, offering his “mull” to Donald Balack, a native of Ross-shire, whom he had just set down. Here the structure of the public chair in use at this date is clearly shown. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, the chair as a mode of conveyance was on the wane. Fenimore Cooper in his _Sketches of English Society_ (1837) was able to write: “Sedan chairs appear to have finally disappeared from St. James’ Street. Even in 1826 I saw a stand of them that has since vanished. The chairs may still be used on particular occasions, but were Cecilia now in existence, she would find it difficult to be set down in Mrs. Benfield’s entry from a machine so lumbering.” Which suggests that the chair had not only degenerated in numbers, but also in appearance. They had become larger and uncouth in Cooper’s day. One is reminded of that chair in _Pickwick_, which “having been originally built for a gouty gentleman with funded property, would hold Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman at least as comfortably as a modern post-chaise.” Yet so late as 1775 the popularity of the chair had been at its highest. It was the old story. With the new century were coming new ideas. The chair slowly and quite naturally was dropping out of existence. In Edinburgh, as I have said, it lingered on for rather a longer time. In 1806 stringent regulations were still required. Those chairs which maintained their stand at night had to have “a light fixed on the fore part of one of the poles.” On the occasion of a fire or a mob the chairmen had to hurry to the scene of excitement, and there await the magistrate’s orders. They were not allowed to charge more than ninepence a mile, seven-and-six a day, or a guinea and a half a week. Such rates, too, continued to be set out in the _Edinburgh Almanac_ until 1830. After that comes an ominous silence. By that time only the private chair was in use. “Lady Don,” says Lord Cockburn in his _Memorials_, “was about the last person (so far as I recollect) in Edinburgh, who kept a private sedan chair. Hers stood in the lobby and was as handsome and comfortable as silk, velvet, and gilding could make it. And when she wished to use it two well-known respectable chairmen, enveloped in her livery cloaks, were the envy of her [superannuated] brethren. She and Mrs. Rochead both sat in Tron Church; and well do I remember how I used to form one of the cluster that always took its station to see these beautiful relics emerge from coach and chair.”