Road Scrapings: Coaches and CoachingHaworth, M. E. (Martin E.)
History
Road Scrapings: Coaches and Coaching
Haworth, M. E. (Martin E.)
Coaching (Transportation)
"Everything in its place and a place for everything" was a maxim
constantly preached by the head-master of a certain public school,
founded by one Sutton; and the proof of his theory was put to the test
by a strange fancy he had taken. He was watching the evolutions of a
small Carthusian army, under the command of a colour-sergeant of the
Scots Guards, and observed that his first word of command was to "fall
in" and "size." This was quickly done, and the effect so much tickled
the doctor, that, on the following Sunday morning, when his catechism
class was arranged before him, he thought it would be well to impress a
little of the military element into the arrangement of the boys; so he
requested the young gentlemen to take their places according to their
sizes. Of course they were very obtuse, and could not for the life
of them understand his order. Even when he placed them with his own
hands, there was a deal of shuffling and confusion to get back to their
old places. The doctor, however, had his way, and M or N, who was a
short, thick, rosy-cheeked boy, was supplanted by a tall, overgrown,
sickly-looking youth of double his stature, and so on according to
height, the lowest being in the centre. No. 2 agreed to his "godfather"
and "godmother" having given the name of M or N to No. 1; but he could
not tell why No. 3, when asked what his sponsors then did for him,
preserved an obstinate silence, and, when much pressed, said they were
both dead! In fact, arranged as the class then was, if the doctor had
asked the questions in High Dutch and expected the answers in Hebrew,
he would have got as much information; whereas, if they had kept their
own places there would not have been a word in the answers omitted.
CHAPTER IV.
Opposition--A quick change--How to do it--Accident to the Yeovil
mail--A gallop for our lives--Unconscious passengers--Western
whips--Parliamentary obstruction.
Although opposition was fierce, certain rules of etiquette and honour
were most rigidly observed on the road, which rendered immunity from
accidents much more general than would have been supposed. It was an
understood thing that no coach should pass another actually in motion
unless invited to do so by the coachman driving the leading coach at
the time. The race became much more exciting in cases where there was a
little diversity in the roads between two points in the destination.
The change in the fast coaches, where the horsekeeper and his mate
knew their business, was effected in a minute and a half; and, like
everything else connected with the fast coaches, required to be done
strictly according to rule.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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