These coaches were probably uncovered, and had projections at the sides known as the _boot_, in which the passengers sat with their backs to the carriage. A coach with four horses carried six travellers; the caravan with four or five horses took twenty-five. The coachman sometimes drove and sometimes rode as postillion. The fare from London to Exeter, Chester, or York was 40s. in summer, 45s. in winter, and the journey took eight days in summer and twelve in winter. Therefore stage-coaches were beyond the reach of the poor. Coaches still run between London and Oxford, and in the summer people clamour for places for this lovely drive of fifty-two miles, now accomplished in a few hours, through some quaint old villages and pretty lanes. There is nothing more pleasing to the artistic eye, or more interesting to the historian, than a driving tour through rural England. Our villages are unique. We welcome motors as a means of getting about, but are glad an enterprising young American is going to try and revive London coaching in our midst. It is, of course, still popular in Devon, Cornwall, the Lakes, and Scotland; in the country districts, in fact, for summer tourists. I have included here a reproduction of the card of one of the public coaches running out of London in 1906, for it promises soon to have an antiquarian interest. Every summer morning for years past these coaches have left Piccadilly, and lately, Northumberland Avenue, for Brighton, Dorking, Windsor, and elsewhere. Now the motor is killing all that, and in a year or two, probably, the last surviving opportunity of coaching into the country will be gone. These old cards seem therefore worth preserving. [Illustration: THE OLD ESTABLISHED Dorking Coach “PERSEVERANCE,” Leaves HOTEL METROPOLE, Northumberland Avenue, At _10.30_ a.m. AND Returns from the WHITE HORSE HOTEL, DORKING, At _3.15_ p.m. EVERY DAY (Sundays excepted). ------+----------------------+------ Fares | LEAVING | ------+----------------------+------ s. d. | | A.M. | “Hotel Metropole” | 10.30 | | 2 6 | * Roehampton | 11.30 | “King’s Head” | | | 4 6 | Kingston | 12. 5 | | 5 0 | Surbiton | 12.15 | | 5 6 | * Hook | 12.25 | “North Star” | | | 6 6 | * Epsom | 1.0 | | 7 6 | Leatherhead | 1.28 | “Swan Hotel” | | | 8 6 | Mickleham | 1.40 | | 9 0 | Boxhill | 1.50 | “Burford Bdg. Hotel” | | | 10 0 | _Arr. at_ Dorking | 2.0 | “White Horse Hotel” | ------+----------------------+------