Assistance of its Carrionly Tits of different colours,
had outrun the Smoothness of the Road, and enter’d upon
_London_-Stones, with as frightful a Rumbling as an empty
_Hay-Cart_, our Leathern-Conveniency[39] being bound in
the Braces to its good Behaviour, had no more Sway than a
_Funeral Hearse_, or a _Country-Waggon_, that we were jumbled
about like so many _Pease_ in a Childs-Rattle, running, at
every Kennel-Jolt, a great hazard of a Dislocation: This
we endured till we were brought within White-Chappel Bars,
where we Lighted from our Stubborn Caravan, with our Elbows
and Shoulders as Black and Blew as a _Rural Joan_, that had
been under the Pinches of an Angry _Fairy_. Our weary Limbs
being rather more Tir’d than Refresh’d, by the Thumps and
Tosses of our ill-contriv’d Engine, as unfit to move upon a
Rugged Pavement as a Gouty Sinner is to valt o’er _London
Bridge_, with his Boots on. For my part, said I, if this be
the Pleasure of Riding in a Coach thro’ _London-Streets_,
may those that like it enjoy it, for it has loosen’d my
Joynts in so short a Passage, that I shall scarce recover
my former Strength this Fortnight; and, indeed, of the two,
I would rather chuse to cry _Mouse-Traps_ for a Livelihood,
than be oblig’d every day to be drag’d about Town under such
uneasiness; and if the Qualities Coaches are as troublesome
as this, I would not be bound to do their Pennance for their
Estates. You must consider, says my Friend, you have not the
right Knack of Humouring the Coaches Motion; for there is as
much Art in Sitting in a coach finely, as there is in riding
the Great Horse; and many a younger Brother has got a good
Fortune by his Genteel Stepping in and out, when he pays a
Visit to her Ladyship.”
In Fleet Street, it seems, things were very bad. “The Ratling of
Coaches,” says Ward, “loud as the _Cataracts_ of _Nile_ Rob’d me of my
Hearing, and put my Head into as much disorder as the untunable Hollows
of a Rural Mob at a Country _Bull-Baiting_.” More trouble followed
later in the day.
“Now, says my Friend, I believe we are not tired with the
Labours of the Day; let us therefore Dedicate the latter part
purely to our Pleasure, take a Coach and go see _May-Fair_.
Would you have me, said I, undergo the Punishment of a Coach
again, when you know I was made so great a sufferer by the
last, that it made my Bones rattle in my Skin, and has brought
as many Pains about me, as if troubled with Rheumatism. That
was a Country Coach, says he, and only fit for the Road; but
_London_ Coaches are hung more loose to prevent your being
Jolted by the Roughness of the Pavement. This Argument of my
Friends prevail’d upon me, to venture my Carcase a second Time
to be Rock’d in a _Hackney_ Cradle. So we took Leave of the
_Temple_, turn’d up without _Temple-Bar_, and there took Coach
for the General Rendezvous aforementioned.
“By the help of a great many Slashes and Hey-ups, and after as
many Jolts and Jumbles, we were dragg’d to the _Fair_, where
our Charioteer had difficulty with his fare—the gay ladies
refusing to pay, but one eventually pledging her scarf and
taking his number.”
It is to be remembered that at this time, as in the last century, the
hackney coaches were used much in the manner of the modern omnibus.
You did not necessarily have one to yourself. The same held good with
regard to the post-chaises. Advertisements were constantly appearing
for a “partner.”
The uneasy motion which so disturbed Ned Ward was a matter which was
receiving the attention of carriage-builders, but little enough was
done. Yet in England, France and Spain, quite a number of strange
machines (including one which was supposed to go without horses) were
invented, and had their day, and disappeared into the lumber-room of
time. Two in particular, though in the main unsuccessful, deserve
mention.
One, properly belonging to the seventeenth century, concerned a new
steel spring, patented in 1691 by a Mr. John Green. It was thus
advertised:—
“All the nobility and gentry may have the carriages of
their coaches made new or the old ones altered, after this
invention, at reasonable rates; and hackney and stage
coachmen may have licences from the Patentees, Mr. _John
Green_ and Mr. _William Dockwra_, his partner, at the rate
of 12_d._ per week, to drive the roads and streets, some of
which having this week began, and may be known from the common
coaches by the words patent Coach being over both doors in
carved letters. These coaches are so hung as to render them
easier for the passenger and less labour for the horses, the
gentleman’s coaches turning in narrow streets and lanes in as
little or less room than any French carriage with crane neck,
and not one third of the charge. The manner of the coachman’s
sitting is more convenient, and the motion like that of a
sedan, being free from the tossing and jolting to which other
coaches are liable over rough and broken roads, pavements
or kennels. These great Conveniences (besides others) are
invitation sufficient for all persons that love their own
ease and would save their horses draught, to use these sort
of carriages and no other, since these carriages need no
alteration.”
Here, in addition to the spring, there was some kind of turning head—a
question which occupied the attention of designers throughout the next
century, but nothing more of Mr. John Green or of his partner was heard
of, and his patent coaches found few if any purchasers.
The other contrivance was a primitive form of gear invented by one
James Rowe. In 1727 this Rowe wrote a book—not, however, published
until 1734—called _All Sorts of Wheel Carriage, Improved_. This was a
small tract “wherein is plainly made to appear, that a much less than
the usual Draught of Horses, etc., will be required, in Waggons, Carts,
Coaches, and all other Wheel Vehicles” by the application of small
“friction wheels and pulleys.” Rowe obtained a patent for his gear
and apparently applied his small wheels to the axle just within the
ordinary wheels, but his own coach was probably the only one ever to
be so fitted. It was felt no doubt that the whole question was one of
roads rather than of carriages. Improve your roads, and the discomforts
of travelling would disappear.
The British stage-coaches of this time were, according to Sir Walter
Scott,
“constructed principally of a dull black leather, thickly
studded, by way of ornament, with black-headed nails tracing
out the panels; in the upper tier of which were four oval
windows, with heavy red wooden frames, and green stuff or
leathern curtains. Upon the doors, also, there appeared but
little of that gay blazonry which shines upon the numerous
quadrigae of the present time; but there were displayed in
large characters the names of the places whence the coach
started, and whither it went, stated in quaint and ancient
language. The vehicles themselves varied in shape. Sometimes
they were like a distiller’s vat; sometimes flattened, and
hung equally balanced between the immense front and back
springs; in other instances they resembled a violincello case,
which was past all comparison the most fashionable form; and
they hung in a more genteel posture, namely, inclining on
to the back springs, and giving to those who sat within the
appearance of a stiff Guy Faux, uneasily seated. The roofs
of the coaches, in most cases, rose into a swelling curve,
which was sometimes surrounded by a high iron guard.... The
coachman, and the guard, who always held his carabine ready
bent, or, as we now say, cocked upon his knee, then sat
together; not as at present, upon a close, compact varnished
seat, but over a very long and narrow boot, which passed under
a large spreading hammer cloth, hanging down on all sides, and
finished with a flowing and most luxurious fringe. Behind
the coach was the immense basket stretching far and wide
beyond the body, to which it was attached by long iron bars or
supports passing beneath it; though even these seemed scarcely
equal to the enormous weight with which they were frequently
loaded. They were, however, never very great favourites,
although their difference of price caused them frequently to
be well filled, for, as an ancient Teague observed, ‘they
got in so long after the coach, that they ought to set out a
day sooner, to be there at the same time. Arrah!’ continued
he, ‘can’t they give it the two hind wheels, and let it go
first?’ The wheels of these old carriages were large, massive,
ill-formed, and usually of a red colour; and the three horses
that were affixed to the whole machine—the foremost of which
was helped onward by carrying a huge long-legged elf of a
postillion, dressed in a cocked hat, with a large green and
gold riding coat—were all so far parted from it by the great
length of their traces, that it was with no little difficulty
that the poor animals dragged their unwieldy burthen along
the road. It groaned, and creaked, and lumbered, at every
fresh tug which they gave it, as a ship, rocking or beating
up, through a heavy sea, strains all her timbers with a
low-moaning sound, as she drives over the contending waves.”
No wonder, said Scott, that at this time people invariably made their
wills before setting out on a journey of any length. The dangers were
manifold and very real.
In France the stage-coaches, or _diligences_, were very similar “with
large bodies, having three small windows on each side and hung by
leather braces on long perch carriages, with high hind wheels and low
front wheels, without any driving box and fitted with large baskets,
back and front for passengers or luggage; they were drawn by five
horses and driven by a postillion on the off wheeler instead of the
near wheeler as in England.” One, at any rate, of these diligences had
springs of a kind. Another public coach in France at this time was
the _gondola_, holding ten or twelve passengers inside, these sitting
sideways with one at each end, a second attempt at a kind of omnibus.
Still another public vehicle popular about this time in Paris was the
_coucou_. Of this weird machine Ramée says:—
“Figure a box, yellow, green, brown, red, or sky blue, open
in front, having two foul benches which had formerly been
stuffed, on which were placed six unfortunate voyagers. In the
sides it had, right and left, one or two square openings, to
give air during the day or in summer. While the interior was
sufficiently open to the world, there was built an apron in
front, framed in woodwork and covered with sheet iron. Upon
this apron was thrown a third bench, on which were seated the
driver of the _coucou_ and two passengers who were termed
_lapins_ (rabbits).”
The _coucou_ was regularly to be seen lumbering painfully along with
its ten or a dozen passengers, its snail’s pace giving it the ironical
name of _vigoureux_. The poorer people almost exclusively used the
_coucou_, although a smart woman with her pet dog, or a gentleman who
had been unable to find a place in the more aristocratic _gondola_,
were occasionally to be seen in its interior sandwiched in between two
peasants.
In Spain the _coucou_ found an equivalent in the _galera_, which was
provided with the ubiquitous basket—a low waggon it was, with its
sides formed of a number of wooden spokes at a considerable distance
from each other, and having no bottom save a strip of spartum on which
the trunks and packages were heaped. In Spain there were several
types of cart, two-or four-wheeled, which likewise plied for passenger
hire. One of these, called a _correo real_, seems to have travelled at
rather a greater pace, though with even less comfort to the unfortunate
passengers than the others. A century later this _correo real_ was
described by Théophile Gautier, who speaks of it as “an antediluvian
vehicle, of which the model could only be found in the fossil
remains of Spain, immense bell-shaped wheels, with very thin spokes,
considerably behind the frame, which had been painted red somewhere
about the time of Isabella the Catholic; an extravagant body full of
all sorts of crooked windows, and lined in the inside with small satin
cushions, which may at some period have been rose-coloured, and the
whole decorated with a kind of silk that was once probably of various
colours.”
In 1743 the system of travelling post, which so long before as 1664 had
been common in France, was introduced into England by one John Trull,
an artillery officer, who obtained a patent for letting carriages for
hire across country. These were the _post-chaises_, of which the first
were two-wheeled with the door in front—in this respect being similar
to the French _chaises de poste_, from which the idea was taken.
Trull’s scheme, however, though successful in itself does not seem to
have brought money to its inventor, who thirty years later died in
the King’s Bench. The door of these first post-chaises “was hinged at
the bottom and fell forward on to a small dasher like a gentleman’s
cabriolet,” and there was a window on either side. “It was hung upon
two very lofty wheels,” says Thrupp, “and long shafts for one horse,
and the body was rather in front of the wheels, so that the weight on
the horse’s back must have been considerable. It was suspended at first
upon leather braces only, but later upon two upright or whip springs
behind, and two elbow springs in front from the body to the cross-bar,
which joined the shafts and carried the step.” Soon, however, these
post-chaises were built with four wheels, and resembled the ordinary
private chariots of the day, though without their lavish ornamentation.
In less than ten years, however, a larger body was given to them,
so that they came to resemble the coach rather than the smaller and
slimmer chariots, while the coachman’s box was made very much higher.
The post-chaise became extraordinarily popular. The literature of
the mid-eighteenth century is full of references to it. All kinds of
adventures happened to people in post-chaises. They were seen in every
part of the country, they could be hired here, there, and everywhere.
Dr. Johnson was only one amongst thousands who loved them. “If I had no
duties,” he records, “and no reference to futurity, I would spend my
life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.” “I have
tried almost every mode of travelling since I saw you,” wrote Wilkes
to his daughter, “in a coach, chaise, waggon, boat, _treckscuyt_,
_traineau_, sledge, etc. I know none so agreeable as my English
post-chaise.”
One thinks naturally of Laurence Sterne. Both in _Tristram Shandy_ and
in the _Sentimental Journey_ he has much to say of the post-chaises.
“Something is always wrong,” he is grumbling somewhere, “in a French
post-chaise, upon first setting out.... A French postillion has always
to alight before he has got three hundred yards out of town.” And
then, of course, there is that never-to-be-forgotten _désobligeante_
which he purchased from M. Dessein at Calais.[40]
“There being no travelling in France and Italy,” he recounts,
“without a chaise—and nature generally prompting us to the
thing we are fittest for, I walk’d out into the coach-yard
to buy or hire something of that kind to my purpose: an old
_Désobligeante_, in the furthest corner of the court, hit my
fancy at first sight, so I instantly got into it.”
And there it was in that queer little carriage which would hold but
one person, that Sterne wrote his famous Preface about Travellers,
“though it would have been better,” he observed, when interrupted, “in
a _Vis-à-Vis_.” The particular _désobligeante_ seems to have proved
satisfactory, but for the species Sterne could not find much praise.
“In Monsieur Dessein’s coach-yard,” he says, “I saw another
old tatter’d _désobligeante_; and notwithstanding it was the
exact picture of that which had hit my fancy so much in the
coach-yard but an hour before, the very sight of it stirr’d up
a disagreeable sensation within me now; and I thought ’twas a
churlish beast into whose heart the idea could first enter, to
construct such a machine; nor had I much more charity for the
man who could think of using it.”
It was certainly not a very sociable carriage, but then neither was the
sedan: both were very useful.
I may conclude this chapter by drawing attention to the tax upon
coaches which was levied at the beginning of 1747. From the fuss that
was made when such a bill was first introduced—it was temporarily
abandoned—you might imagine that one of the most treasured articles of
the Constitution was about to be swept away.
“It is impossible to express,” wrote a country clergyman to
his bishop in a letter which deserves quotation as affording
an insight into the lesser equipages used in the country
at this time, “the various impressions your lordship’s
letter, relating to the tax upon coaches, made here; as
people imagined it a jest, or serious: As most inclined to
the former, it would be too tedious to trouble you with the
witticisms and conundrums it occasioned. B. said the Church
was in danger; C. observed it would be like the gospel-feast
inverted, that the maimed and lame being the only guests
admitted there, would be the only ones excluded here.... As we
have now no reason to doubt such a tax being really intended,
give me leave to represent to you our thoughts of it here.
My living, your Lordship knows, is under £70 _per Ann._, yet
out of this, some years since, I made a shift to lay out six
pounds on an old chariot, which, with the help of my ploughman
and a pair of cart-horses, has drawn my wife, etc., half a
mile to church, who, for the future, must go in a cart, or
stay at home. Repairs, etc., have cost me, _communibus annis_,
for the eleven years I have had it, about 7s. so the interest
of my money, at 5 _per cent_, on the £6 and 7s. in repairs,
is 13s. _per Ann._, which with tax on this my pompous luxury,
will be increased to £4 13s. _per Ann._, almost the prime
cost of setting up my Equipage. I am afraid this is not my
case singly, but will be found pretty nearly so, of most of
the small clergy in England. Among the laity we have several
gentlemen farmers, who manage, in some degree, with the same
frugality, and who, for the same reasons, are prepared to part
with, or continue them according to the fate of this bill;
insomuch, that I can compute that in sixteen parishes I have
in my eye three times that number of coaches will be disposed
of, for we look on the same sum, which is but a trifling duty
on grand equipages, to amount to a prohibition on ours, which
resembles them no more than a ragged coat does an embroidered
suit. I shall not dwell on the quantity of glass (not to
mention leather, etc.), this will bring to market, nor the
future consumption of these commodities it will prevent.... To
me I own it looks a little like the son eating the father....
How many single gentlemen,” he goes on to ask, after pointing
out that it is the poorer married men who will suffer most,
“from 2, 3, to 800_l._ a year, and more, have no coaches, yet
keep a stable of hunters (the worst of which would purchase
my equipage) and a pack of hounds, whom this duty will not
affect?”
But the bill was passed, and so we must suppose that our clergyman and
his farmer friends were forced to walk to church.
Some verses printed in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ at this time may also
be quoted as reflecting the general opinion about the bill.
“Before Bohemian _Anne_ was Queen,
Astride their steeds were ladies seen;
And good Queen _Bess_ to _Paul’s_, I wot,
Full oft astride has jogg’d on trot:
Beaus then could foot it thro’ all weather,
And nothing fear’d but wear of leather.
But now (so luxury decrees)
The polish’d age rolls on at ease:
Coach, chariot, chaise, berlin, landau[41]
(Machines the ancients never saw)
Indulge our gentle sons of war,
Who ne’er will mount triumphant car.
The carriage marks the peer’s degree,
And almost tells the doctor’s fee;
Bears ev’ry thriving child of art;
Ev’n thieves to _Tyburn_ claim their cart.
O cruel law! replete with pain,
That makes us use our feet again;
Or, half our pair oblig’d to lack,
Bids us bestride the other’s back.
A shilling stage would suit with many,
Who cannot reach an eighteen penny.
_Rock_ must enhance the price of pills,
Or drive again—one pair of wheels.
The graduate too will be to seek,
Who mounts his chariot twice a week:
For if the hackneymen should grumble,
I fear our Phaeton[41] must tumble.
O cruel law! to raise the fare
Of Christmas turkey, chine, and hare;
The vails or wages to retrench
Of country serving-man or wench,
Who twice a year ride up and down,
Betwixt their native place and town.
O cruel tax! who must not say,
Which only those who will—need pay?”
From this bill, those who used the one-horse chaises certainly
suffered. _Rusticus_ thereupon offered the following advice to his
fellow-sufferers at the time of the next General Election:—
“Ye who late loll’d in easy _chaise and one_,
And now must walk, or ride _Old Grey_ or _Dun_,
Enquire when wheels were tax’d (to mend your fate)
What patriots, _spokesmen_ were in the debate.
And get this act, a promise to revoke,
Or _put_ into each _spokesman’s_ wheel a _spoke_.”
_Chapter the Seventh_
_THE WAR OF THE WHEELS: WITH SOME CURIOSITIES, REGAL AND OTHERWISE_
“The morning came, the chaise was brought,
But yet was not allowed
To drive up to the door, lest all
Should say that she was proud.
“So three doors off the chaise was stayed,
When they did all get in,
Six precious souls, and all agog
To dash through thick and thin.”
_John Gilpin._
“In my journey to _London_,” wrote an indignant correspondent to the
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, early in 1747, “I travell’d from _Harborough_
to _Northampton_, and well was it that I was in a light Berlin, and six
good horses, or I might have overlaid in that turnpike road. But for
fear of life and limb, I walk’d several miles on foot, met 20 waggons
tearing their goods to pieces, and the drivers cursing and swearing
for being robb’d on the highway by a turnpike, screen’d under an Act
of Parliament.” These turnpikes, or toll-gates, had been but lately
established in England for the preservation of the roads. That they
did very much immediate good, however, may be doubted. A few years
afterwards an English traveller was grumbling at the superiority of the
French roads over our own. “Nothing piques me more,” he wrote in an
amusingly satirical passage, “than that a trumpery despotic Government,
like France, should have enchanting roads from the capital to each
remote part.” He seems to have taken trouble to find out the cause for
so lamentable a difference, and for this purpose consulted “the most
solemn looking waggoner on the road.”
“This prov’d to be _Jack Whipcord_ of _Blandford_. Jack’s
answer was ‘That roads had but one object, namely,
waggon-driving. That he requir’d but five feet wedth in a line
[which he resolved never to quit], and all the rest might go
to the d—— l. That the gentry ought to stay at home and be
d—— and not run gossiping up and down the country. But,
added _Jack_, we will soon cure them, for my brethren since
the late act have made a vow to run our wheels in the coach
quarter. We tack on a sixth or seventh horse at pleasure.
What a plague would they send us to the galleys for this, as
papishes do in beyond-sea countries.’”
The Act to which Jack referred had been passed in 1745. It followed
upon the fact that while coaches, generally speaking, were in process
of becoming lighter, carts and waggons were becoming much heavier.
And so it had been proposed that no waggon should be drawn by more
than four horses, no matter whether these were “in length, pairs or
sideways,” and no cart should have more than three. Every horse above
these numbers could be forfeited together “with all geers, bridles,
halters, harness and accoutrements.” There were to be collectors of
tolls, and gentlemen’s private carriages and purely agricultural
waggons were to be exempt. Also certain roads, presumably those but
lately laid down according to the best ideas of the time, were to be
treated as outside the scope of the Act. And if the wheels of these
heavy waggons and carts possessed “wheels bound with streaks or tire
of the breadth of eight inches at least when worn and not set on with
rose-headed nails,” they might likewise be exempt.
This Bill gave rise to a curious wordy warfare, which was carried
on for some years, and may be said to have interested people in the
general questions of wheeled traffic right on until the time when
McAdam’s schemes altogether altered general opinion. This war, of
course, hardly touched private carriages, but was waged in so many
quarters and with such various weapons that it deserves some mention in
any account of carriages.