File:Stage-coach and mail in days of yore - a picturesque history of the coaching age (1903) (14595828670).jpg

Identifier: stagecoachmailin01harp (find matches)
Title: Stage-coach and mail in days of yore : a picturesque history of the coaching age
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Harper, Charles G. (Charles George), 1863-1943
Subjects: Horses Coaching (Transportation) -- History
Publisher: London : Chapman & Hall, limited
Contributing Library: Tufts University
Digitizing Sponsor: Tufts University and the National Science Foundation

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ishing theirmeal, and the polite gentleman in the ample over-coat is trying to induce the two ladies under hischarge to take a little more. It is quite evidentthat this has been a more leisured affair thanusual, for the yawning travellers by the fireplacehave finished their meal long ago, and a stoutperson is being shaved by a barber in knee-breeches, with legs of a distinctly Lowther-Arcadian type, suggestive of bran and sawdustinstead of bone and muscle. The coachman,ajipearing hat in hand and touching liis forehead,has come to the end of his stage: he goes nofurther, gents, and is here to claim his dues.Meanwhile, the guard outside is lustilv l)loA\ino^his horn, and the empty coach is seen Avaiting. The scene, in fact, here j^ictured is the last halton a long journey; an opportunity seized by thepassengers, not only for a meal, but for a shaveand a general brush-up prej^aratory to alighting attheir destination. Such scenes were the common-place incidents to be observed at Highgate,
Text Appearing After Image:
HOIV THE COACH PASSENGERS FARED 351 Barnet, Hounslow, and other stages near Londonin the coaching age. Here at least—for there are twelve passengerspresent—the insides and the outsides have fore-gathered, and for once the gnlf socially dividingthem has heen bridged. This generally impassablegnlf was more marked in the case of the mailsthan in that of the stage-coaches. The verysuperior and exclusive travellers who w^ent intheir OAvn chariots or by post-chaise resorted towell-known hotels and posting-houses on theroads, whose chaste halls were never profaned bycoaches. Even the sujierior j^ersons who travelledinside the mails could not hope to Avin to thoseexpensive and select abiding-places; but theyformed a caste by themselves, who never willinglysat at meat with the outsides. De Quincey, whooften travelled outside, experienced something ofthis contempt, and the recollection seems to havelent eloquence to his remarks on the subject. Itwas, he tells us, The fixed assumption of the

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