Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible. The errata listed at the end of the book have been fixed.
Some minor corrections of puctuation have been made.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
Bold text has been marked with =equals signs=.
OE ligatures have been expanded.
[Illustration: "THE DEFIANCE HAS GONE 10 MINUTES!"]
ROAD SCRAPINGS:
COACHES AND COACHING.
[Illustration: THE DEVIL AMONGST THE TAILORS!]
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
1882.
ROAD SCRAPINGS:
_COACHES AND COACHING_.
BY
CAPTAIN M. E. HAWORTH,
AUTHOR OF "THE SILVER GREYHOUND."
London:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
1882.
[_All rights reserved._]
INTRODUCTION.
In offering these pages to the public, my object has been confined to
imparting such advice, in matters connected with _coaching_, as has
been suggested by long experience; whilst, in order to dissipate as
much as possible the "dryness" of being told "what to do" and "how to
do it," I have mingled the instruction with illustrative anecdotes
and incidents, which may afford amusement to the general reader. If
whilst my bars are "whistling" up the hill, and rattling down, I have
been able to combine some useful hints with the amusement often to be
discovered in what I have termed "Scrapings of the Road," my desire
will be amply gratified.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
The revival--Magazine magnificence--Death of
coaching--Resurrection--Avoid powder--Does the post
pull?--Summering hunters--The "Lawyer's Daughter"--An
unexpected guest 1
CHAPTER II.
Young coachmen--Save your horses--The ribbons--The whip--A
professional Jehu--An amateur--Paralysed fingers 20
CHAPTER III.
ANECDOTES: Coachmen (friends and enemies)--Roadside
burial--Old John's holiday--How the mail was robbed--Another
method--A visit from a well-known character--A wild-beast
attack--Carrier's fear of the supernatural--Classical
teams--Early practice with the pickaxe--Catechism capsized 34
CHAPTER IV.
Opposition--A quick change--How to do it--Accident to
the Yeovil mail--A gallop for our lives--Unconscious
passengers--Western whips--Parliamentary obstruction 51
CHAPTER V.
The "Warwick Crown Prince"--"Spicy Jack"--Poor old Lal!--"Go
it, you cripples!"--A model horsekeeper--The coach dines
here--Coroner's inquest--The haunted glen--Lal's funeral 65
CHAPTER VI.
Commercial-room--The bagman's tale--Yes--Strange company 90
CHAPTER VII.
Draught horses--The old "fly-waggon"--Weight and
pace--Sagacity of mules--Hanging on by a wheel--The
Refuge--Hot fighting in the Alps--Suffocation--Over at
last--Railway to Paris 104
CHAPTER VIII.
Right as the mail--Proprietors and contractors--Guards and
coachmen--A cold foot-bath--A lawyer nonsuited--Old Mac--The
Spectre Squire--An unsolved mystery 126
CHAPTER IX.
Public and private conveyances in Austria and Hungary--An
English dragsman posed--The Vienna race-meeting--Gentleman
"Jocks"--A moral exemplified 145
CHAPTER X.
North-country fairs--An untrained foxhunter--Tempted
again--Extraordinary memory of the horse--Satisfactory results
from a Latch-key 154
CHAPTER XI.
The Coach and Horses (sign of)--Beware of bog spirits--Tell
that to the Marines--An early breakfast--Salmon poaching with
lights--Am I the man? or, the day of judgment--Acquittal! 168
CHAPTER XII.
Coaches in Ireland fifty years ago--Warm
welcome--Still-hunting--Another blank day--Talent and
temper--The Avoca coach 182
CHAPTER XIII.
Virtue and vice--Sowing wild oats--They can all jump--Drive
down Box Hill--A gig across country 195
ROAD SCRAPINGS.
Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum
Collegisse juvat.
CHAPTER I.
The revival--Magazine magnificence--Death of
coaching--Resurrection--Avoid powder--Does the post
pull?--Summering hunters--The "Lawyer's Daughter"--An unexpected
guest.
To their honour be it said, that there are noblemen and gentlemen
in the land, who willingly devote time, energy, and money, to keep
the dust flying from the wheels of the real old stage coach. The
importance of driving well, and the pleasure derivable therefrom,
are both enhanced by the moral duty and responsibility involved in
directing a public conveyance. The journey once advertised forms a
contract which is most religiously observed, and the punctuality and
precision noticeable in the coaches of the revival are among their most
commendable features.
This is fortunate--since elderly critics may still be seen, grouped
around the door of the White Horse Cellars, prepared to institute
invidious comparisons, and difficult to be won over to believe in
anything but "the old times," when Sir Vincent Cotton and Brackenbury
worked the "Brighton Age," when Lord Edward Thynne piloted the
"Portsmouth Rocket," when "Gentleman Dean" waggoned the Bath mail, and
a hundred minor celebrities glistened in the coaching sphere. Although
the interval between these old coaching days and the revival was a
long one, the connecting-link was never entirely broken. The "how to
do it" has been handed down by some of the most brilliant coachmen
of the age, gentle and simple, who, although the obituary shows their
ranks to have been grievously thinned, are still warm supporters of
the revival, and who, by their example and practice, have restored in
an amateur form a system of coaching which is quite equal (if not a
little superior) to anything in the olden times. Where so many excel
it would be invidious to particularise, but I have seen the "Oxford,"
the "Portsmouth," the "Guildford," the "Brighton," the "Windsor," "St.
Albans," and "Box Hill," as well as sundry other short coaches, leave
the White Horse Cellars as perfectly appointed in every particular as
anything the old coaching days could supply. Coaching in England had
well-nigh died a natural death--ay, and, what is worse, been buried!
Poor "Old Clarke" (supported by a noble duke, the staunchest patron
of the road) fanned the last expiring spark with the "Brighton Age,"
until his health broke down and he succumbed. Another coach started
against him on the opposite days by Kingston and Ewell, called the
"Recherché" (a private venture), but it did not last even so long as
the "Age." Here was the interval! The end of everything.
In 1868 a coach was started to Brighton called the "Old Times,"[1]
the property of a company composed of all the _élite_ of the coaching
talent of the day. It proved a great success, and became very popular;
especially, it may be added, among its own shareholders, who, being all
coachmen, in turn aspired to the box--those who could, as well as those
who only fancied they could. The initiated will at once understand how
fatal this was to the comfort of every fresh team which came under
their lash.
At the end of the coaching season (October 30th, 1868) the stock was
sold, and realised two-thirds more than had been invested in it. The
goodwill and a large portion of the stock were purchased by Chandos
Pole, who was afterwards joined by the Duke of Beaufort and "Cherry
Angel," and these gentlemen carried on the coach for three years.
The second coach started in the revival was one to Beckenham and
Bromley, horsed and driven by Charles Hoare, who afterwards extended it
to Tunbridge Wells. It was very well appointed, and justly popular. The
ball once set rolling, coaching quickly became a mania. The railings of
the White Horse Cellars were placarded with boards and handbills of all
colours and dimensions: "A well-appointed four-horse coach will leave
Hatchett's Hotel on such and such days, for nearly every provincial
town within fifty miles of London."
From the 1st May to the 1st September the pavement opposite to the
coach-office was crowded by all the "hossy" gentlemen of the period.
Guards and professionals might be seen busy with the coach-ladders,
arranging their passengers, especially attentive to those attired in
muslin, who seemed to require as much coupling and pairing as pigeons
in a dovecot. Knots of gentlemen discussed the merits of this or that
wheeler or leader, till, reminded by the White Horse clock that time
was up, they took a cursory glance at their way-bills, and, mounting
their boxes, stole away to the accompaniment of "a yard of tin."
A well-loaded coach with a level team properly handled, is an object
which inspires even the passing crowd with a thrill of pleasurable
approbation, if not a tiny atom of envy. Whyte Melville contended that
a lady could never look so well as in a riding-habit and properly
mounted. Other authorities incline to the fact that the exhilarating
effect produced by riding upon a drag, coupled with the opportunity of
social conversation and repartee, enhances, if possible, the charms of
female attractiveness. Be this as it may, when the end of a journey is
reached, the universal regret of the lady passengers is, not that the
coachman has driven too quickly, but that the journey is not twice as
long as it is. Interesting as the animated scene in Piccadilly during
the summer months may be to those who have a taste for the road, there
is another treat in store for the coaching man, afforded by a meet of
the drags at the Magazine during the London season on special days,
of which notice is given. We do not stop to inquire if the coach was
built in Oxford Street, Park Street, Piccadilly, or Long Acre; whether
the harness was made by Merry or Gibson; whether the team had cost a
thousand guineas or two hundred pounds, but we say that the display of
the whole stands unequalled and unrivalled by the rest of the world.
This unbounded admiration and approval do not at all deteriorate from
the merits of the well-appointed four-horse coaches leaving Piccadilly
every morning (Sundays excepted), as there is as much difference
between a stage-coach and a four-in-hand as there is between a mirror
and a mopstick.
Horses for a road-coach should have sufficient breeding to insure
that courage and endurance which enable them to travel with ease to
themselves at the pace required, and if they are all of one class, or,
as old Jack Peer used to say, "all of a mind," the work is reduced to
a minimum. Whereas, horses for the parade at the Magazine must stand
sixteen hands; and, when bitted and beared up, should not see the
ground they stand upon. They must have action enough to kill them in a
twelve-mile stage with a coach, even without a Shooter's Hill in it.
I do not say this in any spirit of disparagement of the magnificent
animals provided by the London dealers at the prices which such animals
ought to command.
I may here remind my patient reader that unless the greatest care and
vigilance is exercised in driving these Magazine teams, it is three
to one in favour of one horse, one showy impetuous favourite, doing
all the work, whilst the other three are running behind their collars,
because they dare not face their bits. It's a caution to a young
coachman, and spoils all the pleasure of the drive. "He's a good match
in size, colour, and action, but he pulls me off the box; I've tried a
tight curb and nose-band, a high port, a gag, all in vain! If I keep
him and he must pull, let him pull the coach instead of my fingers;
run a side-rein through his own harness-terret to his partner's tug."
No amount of driving power or resin will prevent one "borer" from
pulling the reins through your fingers. I hereby utterly condemn
the use of anything of the sort. If your reins are new, they can be
educated in the harness-room; but the rendering them sticky with
composition entirely prevents the driver from exercising the "give
and take" with the mouths of his team which is the key to good
coachmanship. Let the back of the left hand be turned well down, the
fingers erect; let the whip-hand act occasionally as a pedal does to a
pianoforte, and, rely upon it, you are better without resin.
Whyte Melville, in his interesting work, "Riding Recollections,"
recites an anecdote, which I may be forgiven for quoting, as it
combines both theory and instruction.
"A celebrated Mr. Maxse, celebrated some fifteen years ago for a
fineness of hand that enabled him to cross Leicestershire with
fewer falls than any other sportsman of fifteen stone who rode
equally straight, used to display much comical impatience with the
insensibility of his servants to this useful quality. He was once seen
explaining to his coachman, with a silk handkerchief passed round a
post. 'Pull at it,' says the master. 'Does it pull at you?' 'Yes, sir,'
answered the servant, grinning. 'Slack it off then. Does it pull at you
now?' 'No, sir.' 'Well then, you double-distilled fool, can't you see
that your horses are like that post? If you don't pull at _them_, they
won't pull at _you_.'"
A team, if carelessly driven for a few journeys, will soon forget their
good manners, and begin to lean and bore upon a coachman's hands;
and when the weight of one horse's head (if he declines to carry it
himself) is considered and multiplied by four, it will readily be
believed that a coachman driving fifty or sixty miles daily will make
it his study to reduce his own labour by getting his horses to go
pleasantly and cheerfully together.
There are, of course, instances which defy all the science which can be
brought to bear. Horses do not come to a coach because they are found
too virtuous for other employment, and the fact of their being engaged
with a blank character, or, at most, "has been in harness," does not
inform the purchaser that they made firewood of the trap in their last
situation.
I do not intend this remark to be defamatory of the whole of the
horses working in the coaches of the revival. The average prices
obtained at the sales at the end of the season prove the contrary.
Many horses working in the coaches of the present day have occupied
very creditable places in the hunting-field, and, should they return
thither, will be found none the worse for having been summered in a
stage-coach.
Indeed, I am of opinion that this method of summering has considerable
advantages over the system so often adopted, of first inflicting the
greatest pain and punishment upon the animal by blistering all round,
whether he requires it or not, and then sentencing him to five months'
solitary confinement in a melancholy box or very limited yard.
In the first case, a horse doing a comparatively short stage, provided
he is carefully driven, is always amused. His muscles and sinews are
kept in action without being distressed, his diet is generous and
sufficient without being inflammatory, and, though last not least, he
is a constant source of pleasurable satisfaction to his owner, as well
as a means of bringing him to the notice of many sporting admirers, who
may materially help the average in the autumn sale.
There is no doubt that horses, as a rule, enjoy coaching work, and many
become good disciples to a ten-mile stage which could not be persuaded
to do a stroke of work of any other description.
There are many exceptions to this rule. I have found in my own
experience that, when hurriedly getting together twenty or thirty
horses for coaching purposes, I have been fascinated by symmetry,
and perhaps by small figures, and have bought an unprofitable horse.
A visit to St. Martin's Lane, under such circumstances, once made
me possessor of the very prettiest animal I almost ever saw--a red
chestnut mare, a broad front, two full intelligent eyes, with a head
which would have gone easily into a pint pot, ears well set on, a long
lean neck, joining to such withers and shoulders as would have shamed a
Derby winner, legs and feet which defied unfavourable criticism. Here
was a catch! And all this for eighteen guineas! Nothing said, nothing
written; her face was her fortune, and I thought, mine too. She's too
good for the coach; she ought to ride, to carry a lady; appears a
perfect lamb. I could not resist what appeared to me an opportunity
which everybody except myself seemed to neglect; I bowed to the
gentleman in the box, who immediately dropped his hammer, saying: "For
you!"
I overheard some remarks from the spectators which did not confirm my
satisfaction at having invested in an animal without any character.
"She knows her way here by herself;" "She won't have leather at any
price," whispered another coper; but, as all evil reports are resorted
to by the craft on such occasions, I did not heed them.
I soon found out that my new purchase was not precisely a lamb. To
mount her was impossible. She reared, bucked, kicked, plunged, and
finally threw herself down; so that part of the business I gave up. I
then began to put harness upon her. To this she submitted cheerfully,
and, when she had stood in it for two days, I gammoned her into her
place in the break, when, having planted herself, she declined to move
one inch. The schoolmaster (break-horse) exercised all the patience
and encouragement which such equine instructors know so well how to
administer. He started the load, pulling very gently. He pulled a
little across her, he backed a few inches, then leaned suddenly from
her. All this being to no purpose, he tried coercion, and dragged her
on, upon which, turning the whites of her innocent eyes up, she made
one plunge and flung herself down.
The schoolmaster looked at her reproachfully, but stood still as a
mouse, in spite of her whole weight being upon his pole-chain, till
she was freed.
[Illustration: AN UNEXPECTED GUEST.]
She was too handsome to fight about on the stones, so I determined to
try another dodge; and, putting a pair of wheelers behind her, and
giving her a good free partner, I put her before the bars (near-side
lead). Here the cross of the lamb in her was predominant, she went
away, showing all the gentleness without even the skipping.
I took her immediately into the crowded streets, a system I have always
found most successful with those horses which require distraction,
and her behaviour was perfect. I was so well satisfied, that without
further trial I sent her down the road to make one of a team from
Sutton to Reigate, where she worked steadily, and remained an excellent
leader for one week, when it seemed as if a sudden inspiration reminded
her that the monotony of the work, as well as the bars of the coach,
should be broken by some flight of fancy. She made one tremendous
jump into the air, as high as a swallow ordinarily flies in fine
weather--which evolution cost me "a bar," and after a few consecutive
buck-jumps went quietly away. She did not confine her romps, however,
to this comparatively harmless frolic, but contrived to land from these
wonderful jumps among groups of Her Majesty's subjects where she was
least expected.
On one occasion I was coming away from a change at D----d, when, at the
signal to go, she jumped from the middle of the road completely through
the bay-window of a tailor's shop, where several men were occupied on
the board. At another time she was put to at S----n, where, the weather
being oppressively hot, a party of yokels were regaling _al fresco_
round a large table under the trees. Their attention was naturally
attracted to the coach during the change of horses, but little did they
dream that in another minute one of the leaders would be on the table
before them. So, however, it was. With one bound, scattering the pipes
and pewters far and wide, she landed in the middle of the board.
I should have delighted in continuing my attempts to subdue the
temper of this beautiful animal, especially as, once off, she made
a superlatively good leader; but, where the public safety was
jeopardised, I did not feel justified in further argument with
the young lady, and therefore sold her to a stud company on the
Continent.[2]