[Picture: The Coach-stand]
Nothing can exceed the noise, bustle, and hurry, of the streets of
London, where carriages are passing backward and forward during the whole
day, and most of the night. Carts are creaking under heavy loads of
merchandise, mail-coaches are driving to and from the post-office with
the letter-bags, and more than a thousand hackney-coaches and chariots
are sometimes in motion at once on a rainy day. These are a great
convenience in London; for, to whatever part of the town you may wish to
go, you have only to beckon to a coachman, and
He’ll drive you home quickly, and when you are there,
You have nothing to do but to pay him his _fare_.
That gentleman and lady have called to a coachman to take them home; and
the waterman, who attends on hackney-coaches and their employers, seems
to be enquiring where they are going. We would recommend every person
who hires a hackney coach in London, to notice what number is on the
door, which, on many occasions, has been found very useful.
I am an old coachman, and drive a good hack,
With a coat of five capes that quite covers my back;
And my wife keeps a sausage-shop, not many miles
From the narrowest alley in all broad St. Giles’.
What tho’ at a tavern my gentleman tarries,
Why, the coachman grows richer than he whom he carries;
And I’d rather, says I, since it keeps me from sin,
Be the driver without, than the toper within.
And tho’ I’m a coachman, I freely confess,
I beg of my Maker my labours to bless;
I praise him each morning, and pray ev’ry night,
And ’tis this makes my heart feel so cheerful and light.