[Illustration: LONDON HACKNEY CAB (BOULNOIS’ PATENT) ABOUT 1835.] In 1824 was published _The Hackney Coach Directory_; this book, which must have been hailed as a real boon to the users of cabs in London, was compiled by James Quaife, “Surveyor to the Board of Hackney Coaches.” It set forth the “Distances checked from actual admeasurement from eighty-four coach stands in and about the Metropolis,” and the title page tells us “The number of fares set forth is nearly eighteen thousand.” PRIVATE AND STATE COACHES, 1750-1830. A volume might easily be filled with the particulars of private carriages which came into use between the middle of the eighteenth century and the end of the coaching era. Great ingenuity and a great deal of art of a florid kind was expended on the private coaches of the upper classes. A patent granted in 1786 gives us an idea of the materials used for the purpose; the patent was for a method of “ornamenting the outsides of coaches and other carriages with foil stones, Bristol stones, paste and all sorts of pinched glass, sapped glass and every other stone, glass and composition used in or applied to the jewellery trade.” Mr. Larwood writes of the carriages in Hyde Park:— “The beautiful and somewhat vain Duchess of Devonshire had a carriage which cost 500 guineas without upholstery. That of the Countess of Sutherland was grey, with her cypher in one of Godsell’s newly-invented crystals. A Mr. Edwards had a _vis-à-vis_ which cost 300 guineas, and was thought ‘admirable’; while another nameless gentleman gladdened the eyes of all beholders with a splendid gig lined with looking glass; while the artistic curricle, with shells on the wheels, of Romeo Coates, was one of the features of Hyde Park.” Six horses were not uncommonly driven. Sir John Lade drove a phaeton and six greys. The Prince of Wales, in 1781, drove a pair caparisoned with blue harness stitched in red, the horses’ manes being plaited with scarlet ribbons while they wore plumes of feathers on their heads. The decorative art as applied to vehicles naturally found greatest scope in State coaches. The State carriage of Queen Victoria was built in 1761 for George III. from designs by Sir William Chambers, a famous architect, who was born in 1726. The length of this coach is 24 feet, the height 12 feet, the width 8 feet, and the weight is between 3 and 4 tons; the various panels and doors are adorned with allegorical groups by Cipriani. This superb carriage, having only been used on rare occasions, is still in a good state of preservation. It cost £7,562 to build and adorn. The State coach of the Lord Mayor of London has been of necessity more frequently used, and alterations and repairs have left comparatively little of the original vehicle built in 1757. In style it is generally similar to the Royal State coach,