A CARELESS COACHMAN.

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The same writer describes a serious accident which happened in April, 1826, to the Dorking coach. "This coach," he says, "left the Elephant and Castle' at nine o'clock, full inside and out, and arrived safe at Ewell, where the driver and proprietor, Joseph Walker, alighted for the purpose of getting a parcel from the back part of the coach and gave the reins to a boy who sat on the box. While he was delivering the parcel to a person who stood near the after wheel of the coach, the boy cracked the whip, and the horses set off at full speed. Several attempts were made to stop them, but in vain; they passed Ewell church, and tore away about twelve yards of strong paling, when, the wheels mounting a small eminence, the coach was overturned, and the whole of the passengers were thrown from the roof. Some of them were in a state of insensibility, showing no symptoms of life. A woman who was thrown upon some spikes, which entered her breast and neck, was dreadfully mutilated, none of her features being distinguishable; she lingered until the following day, when she expired in the greatest agony."

The same writer in speaking of the Oxford coach says: "Never shall I forget an adventure that happened to me on the box of the far-famed 'Tantivy.' We had just entered the ' University' from Woodstock, when suddenly the horses started off at an awful pace. What made matters worse was that we saw at a distance some men employed in removing a large tree that had fallen during the storm of the previous night across the road, near St. John's College. The coachman shook his head, looking very nervous, while the guard, a most powerful man, stood up to be prepared for any emergency. On we went, the coachman

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trying in vain to check the galloping steeds, and we had got within a few yards of the critical spot, when the guard, crawling over the roof, managed somehow or other to get on the footboard, when, with a spring, he threw himself on the back of the near wheeler, and with a giant's grasp checked the horses at the very moment the leaders were about to charge the tree. Down they came, but the guard never yielded an inch, and with the assistance of the country people nearest at hand, the leaders regained their legs without the slightest damage to man, horse, coach, or harness. A subscription for our gallant preserver was got up on the spot."

Many other anecdotes this writer tells of the road; of all the books which have been written on the subject of coaching there is none more interesting. He remarks how in October, 1816, English stagecoaches were introduced into France, they started from Dieppe and ran between St. Denis and Paris; but the undertaking was not successful, the Parisians preferring their lumbering diligences to the wellappointed English coach.

Travelling by the mail rather than by the stagecoach had one advantage; all other coaches and every vehicle encountered on the road had to make way for the mail, it changed horses every eight miles, and time had to be kept with extreme punctuality. It was a royal way of travelling, in every sense of the word, since it carried the royal mails; there was no vast collection of luggage on the roof, nor a crowd of passengers all anxious to secure the best places.

Captain Haworth has written a book called "Road Scrapings," having to do with coaches and coaching; the illustrations are evidently home-made, which makes

one regret that he did not employ a professional artist.

Here ends my chapter on mail and stage-coaches, a matter in which all who are fond of driving must feel some interest, and yet no one, except he be fully qualified for the interior of a lunatic asylum, will regret the day when George Stephenson brought the invention of the locomotive to a successful issue, or will nourish ill-feeling against the men who, since his death, have striven by the exercise of supreme intelligence and remarkable inventive genius to improve the machine, to the invention of which the inhabitants of this world owe their daily increasing civilisation, and the free and greatly accelerated expansion of international intercourse.

CHAPTER III.

IRISH MAIL AND STAGE-CARS.

Irish troubles-A clever novelist-Larry Flood-A sprig of shillelagh -As safe as in church-These roads before they were made -A rustic cicerone-A wild Irishman-Irish impudenceBianconi-Leaving home to seek a fortune-A spirit of mischief-His first car-Car-drivers-Electioneering The Bians -Irish fisheries-Immunity from violence-Bianconi's popularity-Mayor of Clonmel.

BEFORE quitting the subject of road travelling by public conveyances, I feel compelled to mention Irish jaunting-cars. These vehicles are not to be found in common use in any other part of the civilised world. Those persons who have not visited Ireland may have been made familiar with them by seeing sketches of them in Punch. John Leech not only portrayed the Irish car, its driver, and the horse which drew it, but gave us the jokes of the Irish car-driver, and so furnished us with excellent examples of their wit, good-humour, and readiness of repartee.

The Irish car is inseparably connected in our minds with Ireland and the Irish; there is an eccentricity about it that appeals to our sense of the ludicrous. Both to the theoretical and practical coach-builder it is possessed of no good quality when balanced on two wheels, as the balance is rarely, if ever, true. In the dog-cart the weight is distributed almost over the axle, but this is not the case with Irish cars.

Sometimes some one, enthusiastic about all that is Irish, exports one of these vehicles, and it is seen.