The hired post-chaise had two post-boys, the servant sat in the dickey, and the luggage was strapped to the roof. These vehicles travelled at about nine miles an hour, and the horses were changed at every stage. Stage-coaches themselves were conspicuous by their dull black leather, studded with nails. The starting-place and destination of the coach were marked on the outside, and the wheels were heavy and cumbersome. Three horses were generally attached, a postillion being on the first one, and the coachman and guard sat together on the box, the latter with his carbine on his knee. In addition to these stage-coaches, carriers were despatched on certain days to all the principal places in the country. But the condition of the roads remained deplorable. In bad weather it often took a carriage two hours to get from Kensington to St. James’s Palace, allowing for the time it was stuck in the mud—roughly, a mile’s progress an hour. In the year 1765 the leather springs of the Bath coach were replaced by steel ones, and so small improvements in the general construction of carriages have continued. _À propos_ of coaches, the Royal Coach, which was built about 1761, and is always used for the opening of Parliament, Royal weddings, Coronations, etc., weighs about four tons. It is a wondrous production, with golden Tritons on the corners. The coach was designed by Sir William Chambers, and cost the sum of eight thousand pounds. The panels were by Cipriani. Those were troublous times, therefore the coach was built with steel blinds, that could easily be raised, so as to divide the occupants from danger, and this probably gave rise to Mr. Frederic Harrison’s remark that the coach in which the late Queen drove to open the Great Exhibition was lined with steel. The passion for gorgeous coaches was if anything increasing. Lady Sarah Lennox, writing to Lady Susan O’Brien (the sister of Charles James Fox), describes a chaise she has just sent the latter, over which she is in great grief. It appears that the most fashionable colour for Park coaches at this time was grey, mounted with silver. Lady Sarah ordered one accordingly for her friend, but on seeing it she discovered the colour was only seen to advantage on large carriages and not on a chaise. About fourteen years later the rage came in for four-in-hands. Ladies as well as men became marvellous charioteers. In fact, they used to drive much faster than gentlemen, although we should not now think their speed very great, for people in the eighteenth century did not put their best horses into harness. Sir John Lade (the nephew of Mrs. Thrale), Lord Rodney, and the Hon. Charles Finch were among the first to sport them. It was out of this fashion the modern Four-in-Hand Club arose, in the early days of the nineteenth century.