February 6, 1663. “So home: and being called by a coachman who had a fare in him he carried me beyond the Old Exchange, and there set down his fare, who would not pay him what was his due because he carried a stranger [Pepys] with him, and so after wrangling he was fain to be content with sixpence, and being vexed the coachman would not carry me home a great while, but set me down there for the other sixpence, but with fair words he was willing to it.” Whence it also appears that some members of the public objected to this practice. The cabman of that time was evidently an insolent character, for Pepys refers contemptuously to a “precept” which was drawn up in March, 1663, by the Lord Mayor, Sir John Robinson, against coachmen who “affronted the gentry.” GLASS WINDOWS IN CARRIAGES. Glass was used in carriages at this time, as the entries quoted from Pepys’ Diary on pages 43 and 44 tell us. Mr. Thrupp states that “no trace of glass windows or perfect doors seem to have existed up to 1650.” Glass was in common use for house windows before that date, and Mr. Thrupp refers to the statement that the wife of the Emperor Ferdinand III. rode in a glass carriage so small that it contained only two persons as early as 1631. The manufacture of glass was established in England in 1557[10] (Stow), but plate glass, and none other could have withstood the rough usage which coaches suffered from the wretched roads, was not made in England until 1670; previous to that date it was imported from France. A patent (No. 244) was granted in 1685 to John Bellingham “for making square window glasses for chaises and coaches.” [10] James I., by Proclamation, in 1615, forbade the manufacture of glass if wood were used as fuel, on the ground that the country was thereby denuded of timber. In 1635 Sir Robert Maunsell perfected a method of manufacturing “all sorts of glass with sea coale or pitt coale,” and Charles I. forbade the importation of foreign glass in order to encourage and assist this new industry. Pepys writes in his Diary, December 30, 1668: “A little vexed to be forced to pay 40s. for a glass of my coach, which was broke the other day, nobody knows how, within the door while it was down: but I do doubt that I did break it myself with my knees.” Forty shillings for a single pane seems to indicate that it was plate glass. This passage also shows us that the lower part of the coach door must have received the glass between the outer woodwork and a covering of upholstery of some kind. Had there been wooden casing inside Pepys would not have broken it with his knees, and had it been uncovered the accident could not have escaped discovery at the moment. IMPROVEMENTS IN CARRIAGES.