Intoxicated coachmen came in for a maximum £10 penalty, or the alternative of a term of imprisonment not less than three months or not exceeding six; insulting coachmen, or others exacting more than the proper fare, or endangering passengers’ lives, a maximum of 40s., or imprisonment of three days to one month. Mail-coach drivers, being more responsible officials, were awarded the heavier of the above penalties for any among a variety of possible offences--such as loitering, or hindering the conduct of his Majesty’s mails to the next stage, or wilfully misspending or losing time, so that the mails did not travel at the rates of speed specified by the Postmaster-General. Licences were to specify the number of persons inside and out the coaches were authorised to carry; and any running without a licence, or carrying passengers in excess, were to be fined £10 for each passenger or additional passenger, or double if the driver were also owner or part-owner. If the offending coachman could be proved to have carried the additional passengers without the knowledge of the proprietors, and if the proprietors derived no profit from it, they escaped the penalty, which then had to be borne by the coachman, with the alternative of imprisonment. These regulations were notoriously broken with impunity every day in the year. Passengers sat on the luggage if they felt so inclined; coachmen got drunk, drove furiously, or allowed the deadly amateur to drive; luggage was stacked to alpine heights; guards discharged their blunderbusses everywhere from sheer wantonness or on joyful occasions; passengers were carried to excess; and, indeed, every provision of every Act was flagrantly violated, generally of malice aforethought, but not seldom from very ignorance and the sheer inability of coach-proprietors and the others concerned to keep themselves fully informed on all points. The waggoners especially found it difficult, with the best will in the world, to keep the law; and even the pikemen at the turnpike gates, who were the sworn enemies of all the users of the roads, but who were bound to comply with certain regulations, often heedlessly omitted the formulæ as by law established, and became liable to penalties.