ship, beating up through a heavy sea, strains all her timbers. In 1774 the proprietors of the “Original London and Salop Machine, in the modern taste, on steel springs,” announced that, among other improvements, their coach had “bows on the top.” Some consideration of this portentous improvement inclines us to the belief that these “bows” must have been guard-irons on the roof for passengers to hold on by, and to prevent them being thrown off. A little further consideration will perhaps bring us to the conclusion that those “bows” would not even then have been placed there had not some serious accident already happened. Such protection was not uncommon, as may be gathered from an account of a coach journey written by Charles H. Moritz, a worthy German pastor who visited England in 1782. His narrative shows that those who were obliged to ride cheaply had a choice of the basket and the roof, and that although the roof then had no seats, it was provided with little handles, to hold on by. But they were of little use, and when the coach rolled like a ship upon a stormy sea the chances of being flung overboard were still as many as ever. But he, like others, having tried both basket and roof, preferred the latter, and returned to it, groaning with the shocks received in the “rumble-tumble.” Rowlandson’s picture of a stage-coach in 1780 shows the same preference. Only one passenger is seen in the wickerwork appendage, while the roof, innocent of safeguards or seats, is covered with sprawling passengers who are content to take their chance of an involuntary flight, so that they escape the certain inconveniences of the “conveniency.” “I observe,” says Moritz, “that they have here a curious way of riding, not in, but upon, a stage-coach. Persons to whom it is not convenient to pay a full price, instead of the inside, sit on the top of the coach, without any seats or even a rail. By what means passengers thus fasten themselves securely on the roof of these vehicles I know not; but you constantly see numbers seated there, apparently at their ease and in perfect safety. This they call riding on the outside, for which they pay only half as much as those who are within. “Being obliged to bestir myself to get back to London, as the time drew near when the Hamburg captain with whom I intended to return had fixed his departure, I determined to take a place as far as Northampton on the outside. But this ride from Leicester to Northampton I shall remember as long as I live.