The carriers and drovers and their kind were, in 1627, forbidden to travel on Sunday, under a penalty of 20s. By the terms of this Act, which began by stating that “the Lord’s Day, commonly called Sunday,” was “much broken and profaned by carriers, waggoners, carters, wainmen, butchers, and drovers of cattle, to the great dishonour of God and reproach of religion,” any of these persons travelling or causing their servants to travel or come to their inns on Sundays could be convicted on the evidence of witnesses, or on their own confession, at any time up to six months after the commission of the offence, and the magistrates could at their discretion award one-third of the penalty to the informer and two-thirds to the poor of the parish. Thus early did the informer, who was in later years to play so important a part, come upon the scene. The notion of a conscious-stricken carrier or drover confessing to the heinous crime of travelling on Sunday is amusing. The next intervention was that of the Sunday Trading Act of 1676, a Puritanical measure whose enactment in the licentious reign of Charles II. is still the wonder of students of social history. Had it been a measure originating with the Commonwealth, its appearance in the statute book could be readily explained, but, as matters stand, we are reduced to assuming that, although King, Court and Society might be vicious, yet Parliament, and England as a whole, were still deeply tinged with strict Sabbatarian sentiments. The Act forbade the sale or exposing for sale of any wares of merchandise whatsoever on the Sabbath day. Drovers, waggoners, horse-coursers, butchers and higglers were not to come to their inns on Sundays, under a penalty of 20s.; and no work, except works of necessity and charity, was to be undertaken. The service in private families and at inns was allowed, and meat might be dressed on that day, and milk cried before 9 a.m. or after 4 p.m. But plying for hire and travelling were not then considered necessary on that day, and so enjoyed no special exemption. The cooking of meat and the selling of milk only enjoyed this Sunday franchise because milk and meat are perishable. It was this consideration that, in 1690, brought about an amendment by which the crying of that exceptionally perishable fish, mackerel, was legalised on the Sabbath. Not a wheel wagged, therefore, on Sundays in the early days of coaching, and the tradition against Sunday travel long outlasted the legal disability; so that although mail-coaches were never a Sabbatarian institution, the stage-coaches on that day were always few while coaching lasted. The tradition was weaker on the Brighton Road than elsewhere. That was a fashionable road, and fashion has ever been irreligious, leaving the people outside its ranks to be the bulwarks of the Seventh Day. Thus we find the first Sunday coach between London and Brighton established in 1792.