The “Tantivy,” London and Birmingham coach, was started in 1832. It left the “Blossoms” inn, Lawrence Lane, at 7 a.m., and was in Birmingham by 7 p.m. The distance, by the route followed, through Maidenhead, Henley, Oxford, Woodstock, Shipston-on-Stour, and Stratford-on-Avon, was 125 miles, and, deducting one hour for changing and refreshing, the speed was only slightly over 11 miles an hour. This coach derived its name from the old word “Tantivy”--an imitative sound as old as the seventeenth century, and often used in the literature of that time, supposed to reproduce the note of the huntsman’s horn, and conjuring up ideas of speed. For Cracknell, the most famous of the coachmen of the “Tantivy,” who once drove the 125 miles at one sitting, and generally drove it between London and Oxford, the “Tantivy Trot,” quoted elsewhere in these pages, was written. Harry Salisbury drove between Oxford and Birmingham. Among its other coachmen was Jerry Howse. Costar and Waddell, of Oxford, horsed the “Tantivy” between Woodstock and London, and Gardner, of Stratford-on-Avon, part-horsed it onwards, not wholly to the satisfaction of Salisbury, who used to declare that the team out of his yard was worth about £25 the lot, and that they had once belonged to Shakespeare. Competition in speed led naturally to rivalry in the building, upholstering, and general appointments of the coaches. Sherman’s Manchester “Estafette” was a splendid turn-out, holding its own against many rivals in the last years of the coaching age. Inside was a time-table elegantly engraved on ivory, showing all towns, distances and intermediate times, illuminated at night by a reflector lamp. It was at this time seriously proposed to light the coaches with gas, with the double object of securing better lighting and effecting a saving on the very heavy bills for oil consumed on the night coaches. The idea was generally abandoned when it was found that the gas tanks would be very heavy and that they would take up all the room in one of the boots, generally reserved for luggage. Coachmen and guards, too, professed anxiety lest they, sitting directly over the fore and hind boots, should be blown up. But, before the project was finally abandoned, it was fully proved that it was practicable, and in January 1827 the Glasgow and Paisley coaches were lit with gas, much to the amazement of the country folk. “Guid Lord, Sandy,” said an old woman to her husband, “they’ve laid gas-pipes all the way frae Glasgae Cross to Paisley!” But they had done nothing of the sort; the gas was carried, as already indicated, in a reservoir stowed away in the front boot.