Sentiment hung round the expiring age of coaching, and has cast a halo on old-time ways of travelling, so that we often fail to note the disadvantages and discomforts endured in those days; but, amid regrets which were often simply maudlin, occur now and again witticisms true and tersely epigrammatic, as thus: For the neat wayside inn and a dish of cold meat You've a gorgeous saloon, but there's nothing to eat; and a contributor to the _Sporting Magazine_ observes, very happily, that "even in a 'case' in a coach, it's 'there you are'; whereas in a railway carriage it's 'where are you?'" in case of an accident. On September 21st, 1841, the Brighton Railway was opened throughout, from London to Brighton, and with that event the coaching era for this road virtually died. Professional coach proprietors who wished to retain the competencies they had accumulated were well advised to shun all competition with steam, and others had been wise enough to cut their losses; for the Road for the next sixty years was to become a discarded institution and the Rail was entering into a long and undisputed possession of the carrying trade. The Brighton Mail, however--or mails, for Chaplin had started a Day Mail in 1838--continued a few months longer. The Day Mail ceased in October, 1841, but the Night Mail held the road until March, 1842. VI Between 1841, when the railway was opened all the way from London, and 1866, during a period of twenty-five years, coaching, if not dead, at least showed but few and intermittent signs of life. The "Age," which then was owned by Mr. F. W. Capps, was the last coach to run regularly on the direct road to and from London. The "Victoria," however, was on the road, _via_ Dorking and Horsham, until November 8th, 1845. [Illustration: The BRIGHTON DAY MAILS CROSSING HOOKWOOD COMMON, 1838. _From an engraving after W. J. Shayer._] [Sidenote: THE COACHING AMATEURS] The "Age" had been one of the best equipped and driven of all the smart drags in that period when aristocratic amateur dragsmen frequented this road, when the Marquis of Worcester drove the "Beaufort," and when the Hon. Fred Jerningham, a son of the Earl of Stafford, a whip of consummate skill, drove the day-mail; a time when the "Age" itself was driven by that sportsman of gambling memory, Sir St. Vincent Cotton, and by that Mr. Stevenson who was its founder, mentioned more particularly on page 37. When Mr. Capps became proprietor, he had as coachman several distinguished men. For twelve years, for instance, Robert Brackenbury drove the "Age" for the nominal pay of twelve shillings per week, enough to keep him in whips. It was thus supremely fitting that it should also have been the last to survive.