Elizabeth’s coach was generally drawn by two white horses, was gaudily decorated, and had a canopy, but was open at the sides. The driver sat on a kind of narrow chair close behind the horses, and rather low down. The Queen _liked_ to be the only lady in the land to ride in such a vehicle, and her jealousy was so aroused when the ladies of London thought to follow suit, that she became irate, and actually passed a law “to restrain the excessive use of coaches.” In spite of this legislation and the bad state of the roads, so many people ordered these equipages that there was soon an actual dearth of leather to cover them, just as there is scarcity of rubber for tyres of motors to-day. D’Avenant, writing of the gay Metropolis at this time, says: “Surely your ancestors contrived your narrow streets in the days of the wheelbarrow, before the greater engines, carts, were invented.” Mary Queen of Scots, unlike Elizabeth, seems to have ridden on all her journeys. The first public vehicles were, according to Stow, started in 1564, and were called “caravans.” Forty years later, one of these was running between London and Canterbury, and a patent was granted to a man to run a stage-coach on the little trip between Edinburgh and Leith. The reign of James I. also saw the pioneer hackney coach in London. A few years afterwards the first “rank” was established, when a Captain Baily acquired four hackney coaches and made them stand at the Maypole (near St. Mary’s in the Strand) for hire. Skeats derives the word “hackney” from two Dutch words, meaning a “jolting nag”—the old way of spelling it was “hacquenée.” The coachman rode his horse, postillion fashion, and used whip and spurs. There was constant rivalry between the chairmen of the sedans and coachmen of that age, and good-humoured chaff and jeers were bandied from one to another as freely as between the omnibus drivers and chauffeurs of motor cars to-day. Many transformations have taken place since the first hackney carriage plied for hire in 1615 and the advent of the first public motor cab at Hyde Park Corner in 1906. It was several months before the first handful of these were augmented by an addition of five hundred, with the pleasing joys of the taximeter. The next novelty for getting about was the sedan-chair. On the return of Prince Charles (aferwards Charles I.) from the Court of Spain, he brought four back with him, and gave one to the Duke of Buckingham, “his dear Steenie,” who was hooted when he appeared in it in the streets. The chairs were very unpopular, as the people objected to see men employed as beasts of burden. However, when it was understood that letting them on hire might prove profitable, they were at once adopted.