Another three-days-a-week coach then began to ply between London and Bath. In 1711 it had a rival, and five years later saw the establishment of the first daily coach from London. Thomas Baldwin, citizen and cooper of London, saw money in the venture, and, like the hero of one of Bret Harte's verses, who "saw his duty a dead sure thing," he "went for it, there and then." He would seem to have secured it, too, for he held the road for many years against all rivals, and was, moreover, landlord of one of the foremost hostelries on the road--the "Crown," at Salt Hill. [Illustration: COACHING MISERIES. (_After Rowlandson._)] His rivals were many, and, considering the popularity to which Bath soon attained, they must all have done well. Indeed, the establishment of a new coach to Bath would now appear to have been a favourite form of speculation, and Londoners found many such advertisements as the following:-- "_Daily Advertiser._ April 9, 1737. "For Bath. "A good Coach and able Horses will set out from the 'Black Swan' Inn, in Holborn, on Wednesday or Thursday. "Enquire of WILLIAM MAUD." [Sidenote: _COACHING MISERIES_] The invalid who trusted himself to the stage-coach of that period had, however, many risks to run. Doctors might recommend the waters, but before the patient reached them he had to endure a two days' journey, and even at that to bear a very martyrdom of bumps and jolts. For that was just before the time when coach-proprietors began to announce "comfortable" coaches "with springs," just as, a little earlier, they had laid great stress on their conveyances being glazed, and (to skip the centuries) as railway companies nowadays advertise dining and drawing room cars. Here are some coaching woes:-- "Just as you are going off, with only one other person on your side of the coach, who, you flatter yourself, is the last--seeing the door opened suddenly, and the landlady, coachman, guard, etc., cramming and shoving and buttressing up an overgrown, puffing, greasy human being of the butcher or grazier breed; the whole machine straining and groaning under its cargo from the box to the basket. By dint of incredible efforts and contrivances, the carcase is at length weighed up to the door, where it has next to struggle with various obstacles in the passage." The pictorial commentary upon this text is appended, together with a view representing passengers refreshed by being overturned into a wayside pond.