do--namely, he could drive when he was drunk nearly as well as when he was sober. He was very frequently a faithful servant to his employers; considered trustworthy by bankers and others in the country through which he passed; and as humane to his horses, perhaps, as the adverse circumstances he was placed in by his masters would admit.' Time has dealt kindly with the reputation of the old stage coachman, and popular tradition holds him, as Nimrod portrayed him, a whip of unrivalled skill. That there were such men is perfectly true;[1] but not every stage coachman was an expert: not all were skilful or even careful, and not all were civil: and if, as Nimrod says, they could drive as well when drunk as when sober, the cold light of contemporary record shows that there was ample room for improvement. Take the following:--On the 18th of May 1808 the coachman of the Portsmouth coach to London was intoxicated, and "when he came to the foot of the hill on Wimbledon Common, instead of keeping straight on turned to the left and found himself in Putney Lane, where turning the corner of Mr. Kensington's wall in order to get again into the road to Wandsworth, the coach was overturned." He appears to have driven on to the bank by the roadside. The ten outside passengers were all more or less hurt, one dying from her injuries, and the coachman himself had both legs broken. Accidents due to reckless driving and racing were very common, despite the law[2] of 1790 which made a coachman who, by furious driving or careless, overturned his coach, liable to a fine not over five pounds. The following is typical:-- 'Last night occurred one of those dreadful catastrophes, the result of driving opposition coaches, which has so stunned the country with horror that sober people for a time will not hazard their lives in these vehicles of fury and madness.