Stage-coach and Mail in Days of Yore, Volume 1 (of 2) / A picturesque history of the coaching age

“The law,” said Mr. Bumble, “is a hass!” and scarcely ever has it appeared more asinine than in its dealings with the roads and road-traffic. Legislative traffic restrictions were very early introduced, originally on behalf of the highways; and not until the coaching age was well advanced did it appear necessary to intervene with enactments protecting the passengers as well as the road surface. There was perhaps no necessity to legislate against reckless driving in the early days of coaching; for, with the singularly bad state of the roads, the clumsy build of the original vehicles, and the exhaustion of the teams that drew them great distances without a change, it would have passed the wit of man to be a charioteer with the dashing methods attributed to Jehu, that Biblical hero, the son of Nimshi, who, we are told, “drove furiously.”

The first restrictions to be put in force were those levelled against the heavy road-traffic of the time of James I. By them, four-wheeled carts and waggons were, in 1622, absolutely prohibited, and loads above 20 cwt. forbidden: “No carrier or other person whatsoever shall travel with any wain, cart, or carriage with more than two wheels, nor above the weight of twenty hundred, nor shall draw any wain, cart, or carriage with more than five horses at once.” This was confirmed in 1629. It seems an arbitrary and merely freakish act, thus to interfere with the traffic of the roads; but we must remember what those roads were like, and consider that our ancestors were not irrational puppets, but living, breathing, and reasoning men, whose doings, when considered in relation with the times, the limitations that obscured their view, and the disabilities that surrounded them, were eminently logical. It is not easy to be wiser than one’s generation, and those who are have generally been accounted geniuses by later ages and madmen by their contemporaries. Even when ideas are of the enlightened kind, they are not readily to be applied when greatly in advance of their era; for stubborn facts, difficult to remove or improve away, commonly delay the practical application of the most brilliant theories. If a seventeenth-century MacAdam had arisen to preach the gospel of good roads, instead of repressive regulations for bad ones, he would still have had to overcome the difficulty of finding road-metal in districts far removed from stone; and how he would or could have surmounted that impediment when all roads were bad and the transport of materials from a distance expensive and tedious, we will leave the reader to determine.

To look upon our forbears, therefore, as though they were strange creatures whose movements were not governed by as much common sense as our own would be absurd.

The reason for the regulations proclaimed in 1622 and again in 1629 was set forth in the statement that the four-wheeled waggons used up to that time had, with their excessive burdens, so galled the highways and the very foundations of bridges that they had become common nuisances.

The carriers and drovers and their kind were, in 1627, forbidden to travel on Sunday, under a penalty of 20s. By the terms of this Act, which began by stating that “the Lord’s Day, commonly called Sunday,” was “much broken and profaned by carriers, waggoners, carters, wainmen, butchers, and drovers of cattle, to the great dishonour of God and reproach of religion,” any of these persons travelling or causing their servants to travel or come to their inns on Sundays could be convicted on the evidence of witnesses, or on their own confession, at any time up to six months after the commission of the offence, and the magistrates could at their discretion award one-third of the penalty to the informer and two-thirds to the poor of the parish. Thus early did the informer, who was in later years to play so important a part, come upon the scene. The notion of a conscious-stricken carrier or drover confessing to the heinous crime of travelling on Sunday is amusing.

The next intervention was that of the Sunday Trading Act of 1676, a Puritanical measure whose enactment in the licentious reign of Charles II. is still the wonder of students of social history. Had it been a measure originating with the Commonwealth, its appearance in the statute book could be readily explained, but, as matters stand, we are reduced to assuming that, although King, Court and Society might be vicious, yet Parliament, and England as a whole, were still deeply tinged with strict Sabbatarian sentiments. The Act forbade the sale or exposing for sale of any wares of merchandise whatsoever on the Sabbath day. Drovers, waggoners, horse-coursers, butchers and higglers were not to come to their inns on Sundays, under a penalty of 20s.; and no work, except works of necessity and charity, was to be undertaken. The service in private families and at inns was allowed, and meat might be dressed on that day, and milk cried before 9 a.m. or after 4 p.m. But plying for hire and travelling were not then considered necessary on that day, and so enjoyed no special exemption. The cooking of meat and the selling of milk only enjoyed this Sunday franchise because milk and meat are perishable. It was this consideration that, in 1690, brought about an amendment by which the crying of that exceptionally perishable fish, mackerel, was legalised on the Sabbath.

Not a wheel wagged, therefore, on Sundays in the early days of coaching, and the tradition against Sunday travel long outlasted the legal disability; so that although mail-coaches were never a Sabbatarian institution, the stage-coaches on that day were always few while coaching lasted. The tradition was weaker on the Brighton Road than elsewhere. That was a fashionable road, and fashion has ever been irreligious, leaving the people outside its ranks to be the bulwarks of the Seventh Day. Thus we find the first Sunday coach between London and Brighton established in 1792.

The Sunday Trading Act has never been wholly repealed, and it is still possible for sour and malignant persons to intervene, under the ready cloak of religious and Sabbatarian feeling, and to lay information against shopkeepers who open on Sundays, and so cause the tobacconists, the hairdressers and newsagents, who commonly continue their business on that day, to be summoned and fined for every such offence. The Act only generally comprehended hackney-coaches, but that term included the stages, which were thus penalised until 1710, when, by the 9th of Anne, c. 23, hackney-coachmen and chairmen might ply.

It is a curious and noteworthy point about this obsolescent Act that when an information is laid the police have no optional course. They must issue a summons, while the magistrates are bound to fine offenders on their being convicted. It depends, however, upon the character and the prejudices of the bench whether the penalty may be a merely nominal one, carrying an implied disapproval of the informer’s action, or the full statutory fine of 5s. and costs. We here observe the ill which it is still possible for the common informer to work, but the great days of these gentry are gone.

Parliament, never tired of legislating for roads and vehicles, produced in course of time a strange and bewildering medley of laws, often contradictory of one another. Among these Acts, those for the regulation of waggons were the most numerous. An early curiosity of the statute book in this connection is the Act of Charles II. forbidding carters and waggoners to drive six or more horses tandem. Already, it appears, the old prohibition of four-wheeled carts or wains, in 1622 and 1629, was obsolete. Then followed an Act of William III. expressly forbidding waggon-horses being yoked in pairs; but another of the same reign withdrew this prohibition, and, in allowing pairs, limited the team to eight animals. In the succeeding reign of Anne this limit was reduced to six in pairs, except uphill, when additional horses might be yoked on. The prohibition of horses going abreast points to the extreme narrowness of the roads in many parts of the country at that time, just as its supersession by the Act permitting pairs would appear to be a result of road-widening.

To make a digest of this whole series of enactments and the clauses repealed and re-enacted would not only tax the acumen and industry of a Parliamentary lawyer, but the result would be tedious. Let us, then, pass to the Act called, in Parliamentary jargon, “24th George II., c. 43.” This came into operation July 1st, 1752, and took off one of the six horses allowed to waggons by the Parliament of Queen Anne. No carriage or waggon drawn by more than five horses, except up steep hills, was permitted to pass through any toll-gate or toll-bar, unless the sum of twenty shillings over and above the usual tolls was paid; and any person taking off any horse from such vehicle, with intent to avoid the payment of the additional toll, was, on conviction of the offence, to forfeit £5 to the informer, who was given the right to levy a distress on the offender’s goods if he could not recover the penalty in any other way. At the same time, no waggon was to pass which weighed, with its contents, more than three tons; and weighing engines were to be provided by turnpike trustees, to see that the law was not infringed. This was a very determined Act, but those who drew it were very well satisfied that, considering the comparatively few roads already turnpiked, its meshes could not be made small enough to catch those offenders who constantly carried weights up to five tons upon the roads and yoked up ten or twelve horses to drag the enormous load. It was obvious that the only thing the waggoners had to do in order to evade the law was—risking the chance of finding the way impassable—to turn aside on nearing a turnpike and to make a circuit along parish roads where no toll-houses existed. Accordingly, those who framed the Act inserted what was intended to be a very alarming and altogether disabling clause. It was made an unlawful act to drive off in this manner into adjacent roads for the purpose of avoiding toll, and a penalty was set up for so doing. This was the forfeiting of one horse (not being the shaft or thill horse) and “all his gear and accoutrements.” This phrase for harness strikes one as being magnificent, and almost raises the sturdy Suffolk “Punch” or the Lincolnshire carthorse to the status of a military hero.

No enforcement of this penalty can be found, but it is not to be supposed that it was never made, although, to be sure, the clause had loopholes sufficiently wide for the traditional coach-and-six to be easily driven through. Apart from the questionable legality of forbidding common roads to traffic, it would have needed no very able lawyer to successfully defend an offender charged with being on a bye-route “with intent to defraud” the tolls. Half a dozen sufficient explanations would have been ready. The waggoner might have missed his way; it might have been his best way—and so forth.

This Act, and others of like nature, especially exempted certain classes of waggons and carts, particularly agricultural vehicles; while his Majesty’s War Office and military commanders might use waggons carrying any weight they thought proper and drawn by as many horses as might be thought necessary. The law was, in fact, framed to protect the roads against traders, who were thought to be profiting greatly by the growth of manufactures and not contributing sufficiently to the upkeep of the roads which it was thought their excessive loads did much to wear out. The Acts had force in the country generally, but London and a radius from twenty-five to thirty miles were usually excepted.

A very lengthy and severe General Turnpike Act, embodying some of the provisions already detailed, with many new ones, was that of 1766. Preambles to Acts of Parliament are generally exaggerated statements of the necessities that procured the passing of the enactments to which they sometimes afford astonishing prefaces. They are, indeed, officially so recognised, and lawyers accordingly describe them as “common form.” The preamble, however, to the Act of 1766 was an exact statement of affairs, and in saying that “the laws for the general regulation of turnpike roads are very numerous and in some respects ineffectual,” it merely set forth a commonplace of the time.

For a number of years before the passing of this measure, lengthy and heated controversies had arisen on the subject of waggons and roads, and as a result it was generally conceded that wheels with narrow tyres and heavy loads cut up the highways into ruts, while broad wheels so distributed the weight that they greatly minimised that evil, or even, if they were broad enough, rolled the surface into a better condition than it was in before their passing. Inventive minds, rioting with theories not perfectly tested, went to extremes and produced extraordinary waggons with heavy iron rollers instead of wheels, which would certainly have flattened out the most rugged of roads had it been possible for horses to have moved the enormous weight. As a result of much trial, the stage-waggons of the time were constructed with wheels whose breadth ranged from six to nine inches, and such vehicles enjoyed a remission of extraordinary toll in proportion to those measurements. From 1766, then, four-wheeled waggons weighing over three tons, with wheels less than nine inches in breadth, paid 20s. over and above the ordinary toll; all over six tons, irrespective of wheels, 20s.; and two-wheeled carts over three tons, 20s.; while waggons and carts so constructed with regard to long and short axletrees to front and hind wheels that, in conjunction with the breadth of their wheels, they rolled a track of not less than sixteen inches on either side, paid only half of the ordinary toll levied upon wagons with a nine-inch breadth of wheel. These provisions may perhaps seem a little complicated, but they were a great deal more so in actual working, for their chance of being always understood and fairly applied was small when administered by country pike-keepers.

The maximum length and width of waggons was specified by this Act, which declared it to be unlawful for any but timber-waggons to be of greater breadth than four feet six inches between the axletrees, or of a greater length than nine feet from the centre of fore wheels to that of the hind ones. No broad-wheeled waggon was to be drawn by more than eight horses, or two-wheeled carts by more than five, in pairs; and narrow-wheeled waggons were not allowed more than four. A penalty of 20s. was indicated for harnessing an extra horse, in addition to the horse being confiscated. Additional horses might be used when the roads were covered with snow or ice, and it was left to the discretion of turnpike trustees to allow extra horses on steep hills, in which cases any number up to ten might be used for four-wheeled waggons, or up to six for two-wheeled; but trustees were to carefully specify those hills on which this indulgence was granted. Steep hills, consequently, for many years afterwards were generally seen with notices beside the road, where the horses might be attached. A post at the bottom announced in large letters, “Put On,” and another, at the top, “Take Off.”

Narrow-wheeled waggons were not to be drawn by pairs. Drag-irons or slippers to be flat, not rounded; penalty 40s. The owner’s name and place of abode were to be painted on the most conspicuous part of each waggon or cart, with the words “Common Stage-Waggon,” or cart, as the case might be. It was this enactment that for many years afterwards gave their characteristic appearance to the old stage-waggons, for the most conspicuous place on them was undoubtedly the canvas tilt, which was always painted as the Act directed, in very large lettering.

The Act was lavish with its pains and penalties. For using a waggon with a false name, or without a name, 40s. was the price. The driver of any waggon with wheels not constructed according to law, or drawn by more horses than authorised, could be imprisoned, and powers were given to any person to apprehend any driver in such cases. If a driver, on coming to a toll-gate, unharnessed any horses or unloaded any part of his load with intent to deceive or defraud the turnpike authorities, he forfeited £5; while the owner paid the same sum in cases where waggons were loaded to excess, and the driver became liable to be committed for one month to a house of correction.

Among the clauses of this and other Acts it is especially forbidden to waggoners to sit in, or drive from, their waggons. They must either walk or ride beside them. They had, indeed, generally done so, as the portrait of old Hobson, on horseback, shows us, or the pictures and narratives of old road life by contemporary artists and writers sufficiently prove; but as the Acts especially decree that waggoners were not to ride on the waggons, the reason being that from such a position they could not maintain sufficient control over their horses, some of them must have done so, and perhaps have fallen asleep and so caused accidents, just as the slumbering carters and waggoners on their way to and from Covent Garden Market do now.

It now became the turn of the coaches to attract the attention of legislators. They obtained this doubtful favour because it had just occurred to the Revenue officials that, owing to the increased number of coaches running, and the larger number of persons resorting to them, the duty on post-horses had not grown at its accustomed rate. The remedy ready to hand was a Stamp Office duty on stage-coaches, which was accordingly introduced in 1776, and four-wheeled coaches paid £5 per annum. The Revenue “vampires,” as the coach-proprietors called them, turned again to this new source of income, and in 1783 levied a duty of a halfpenny a mile run by every stage-coach. Further measures were introduced two years later, when the duties were revised, and four-wheeled and two-wheeled coaches alike paid a five-shilling annual license, and a duty of a penny a mile. From this express inclusion of two-wheeled coaches, it would seem that some vehicles of that nature had been introduced to evade the previous duty; but coaching history is silent on the subject. The duty of a penny a mile was to be paid monthly, and seven days’ notice to be given of any coach being discontinued.

So far the legislature had only taken notice of coaches when new sources of revenue were being sought; but an eye was already upon their doings, an eye that had noted the increasing accidents, due to overloading, reckless driving, and a variety of other causes. It was not an official eye that thus ranged over the roads of the kingdom and marked the broken limbs and contusions of the lieges, acquired by falling from the roofs of coaches, by collisions and upsets: it was the stern gaze, indeed, of one Richard Gamon, a private member of Parliament, who in 1788, in the face of much opposition and ridicule, brought in a Bill to regulate stage-coaches. It is sad to think that even those who travelled largely by coach, whom Mr. Gamon desired to protect, made fun of his efforts, and, when his Bill at first failed to pass, rejoiced as greatly in the prospect of a continued free trade in broken necks and legs as ever the coach-proprietors themselves could have done. Some of this wit was very cheap stuff indeed. It largely consisted of torturing Mr. Gamon’s name into “Gammon,” and that done, the rest was easy. A morning newspaper found it possible to write thus:—

Richard Gamon was a member for Winchester in five several Parliaments. He had been a commissioner for salt duties, but resigned that office to enter the House. He was created a baronet in July, 1795, and died, aged sixty-nine, April 9th, 1818. His Act was not forgotten, for in his obituary notice it is duly stated that “with him originated that useful and humane law for regulating the number of outside passengers on stage-coaches.”

What with public ridicule of his original Bill and the petition of the coach-proprietors against it, Mr. Gamon and his legislative effort had, in one way and another, a stirring time. But in the same year he saw it pass into an Act, and two years later he procured an amended and stricter statute. So ridicule does not always kill.

It therefore became law that stage-coaches were not to carry more than six passengers on the roof or more than two on the box in addition to the coachman. For every passenger in excess the coachman was liable to a penalty of 40s., and if he was proprietor, or part proprietor, this penalty was raised to £4. The amended Act very materially altered this regulation. Coaches drawn by three or more horses were allowed only one passenger on the box and four on the roof, and those with fewer than three horses, one passenger on the box and three on the roof. If the pair-horse coaches did not travel farther than twenty-five miles from London, they might carry an additional passenger on the roof. The penalty for carrying excess passengers was severe, and ingeniously contrived in order to wholly suppress the practice. It was 5s. each for every supernumerary passenger, to be paid to the toll-keeper at every turnpike gate. This was a sure method, for an excess number would be instantly detected by pike-men eager for a chance to add to their income. The penalty for fraudulently setting down a passenger near a turnpike gate, and taking him up on the other side, with intent to evade this regulation, was of a different kind, but of equal severity. It was a term of imprisonment, of not less than fourteen days or more than a month. The names of the coach proprietors were to be painted in legible characters on the doors of all the coaches, with the exception of the mails.

One section of the Acts of 1788 and 1790 had a special significance. It forbade coachmen permitting other persons to drive, under a penalty of from 40s. to £5. The amateur whip, of whom later writers complained so bitterly, had evidently already been taking coaching lessons on the road, with disastrous results. The practice was not stopped by the Acts or the penalty, for in 1811 the prohibition was renewed, and the fine raised. It was then to be anything between £5 and £10, at the discretion of the magistrates.

Coachmen were viewed all round, as it were, and their failings separately ticked off and provided against. No coachman was to leave his box without reasonable cause or occasion, or for an unnecessary length of time. Furious driving now being physically possible, and frequently indulged in, was legislated for, together with any negligence or misconduct resulting in the overturning of a coach or the endangering of passengers. A guard of a stage-coach who should fire off his piece unnecessarily, or for other than defensive purposes, on the road or in any town, forfeited 20s., a penalty enlarged to £5 in 1811, and including mail-guards.

The Act of 1806, introducing itself by stating that previous Acts were ineffectual and insufficient, started off by repealing the provisions of the older ones, allowing only six outsides for four-horse coaches. They might now carry twelve outsides in summer and ten in winter, including the guard, but exclusive of coachman. In 1811 the number was reduced to ten throughout the year. The positions of the outsides were specified—one passenger on the box with the coachman, three in front of the roof, the remainder behind. Coaches with only two or three horses now carried five outsides, exclusive of the coachman; but “all stages called long coaches, or double-bodied coaches” might carry eight outsides, exclusive of coachman, but including the guard. Children in arms or under seven years of age were not to be counted, unless there were more than one, when two were to be counted as one passenger, and so on.

A curious section, bearing upon and corroborating what De Quincey and others have written upon the disdain and contempt of the insides for the outsides, is that which forbade any outside passenger to go inside or to remain inside without the consent of one at least among those already within; and when that permission was granted, the outsider was to be placed next the consenting passenger.

The height to which luggage might be piled on the roof of a coach was also carefully set forth. From March 1st, 1811, it became unlawful for any driver, owner or proprietor to permit luggage, or indeed any person, on the roof of a coach the top of which was more than 8 ft. 9 in. from the ground, or whose gauge was less than 4 ft. 6 in. Coaches must then have been of an extraordinary height to need such a clause as this. The penalty for infringing it was £5. Luggage on ordinary stage-coaches was not to exceed 2 ft. in height, or three-horsed coaches, 18 in., with a penalty of £5 for every inch in excess. Luggage might be carried to a greater height if it was not, in all, more than 10 ft 9 in. from the ground. Turnpike keepers and others were given powers to have the luggage measured, and passengers themselves might see that it was done; and drivers refusing such measurements to be taken were to be fined, on conviction, 50s. Passengers, too, came in for their share. No passenger was to sit on the luggage, or the place reserved for it, under the like penalty of 50s.

Intoxicated coachmen came in for a maximum £10 penalty, or the alternative of a term of imprisonment not less than three months or not exceeding six; insulting coachmen, or others exacting more than the proper fare, or endangering passengers’ lives, a maximum of 40s., or imprisonment of three days to one month. Mail-coach drivers, being more responsible officials, were awarded the heavier of the above penalties for any among a variety of possible offences—such as loitering, or hindering the conduct of his Majesty’s mails to the next stage, or wilfully misspending or losing time, so that the mails did not travel at the rates of speed specified by the Postmaster-General.

Licences were to specify the number of persons inside and out the coaches were authorised to carry; and any running without a licence, or carrying passengers in excess, were to be fined £10 for each passenger or additional passenger, or double if the driver were also owner or part-owner. If the offending coachman could be proved to have carried the additional passengers without the knowledge of the proprietors, and if the proprietors derived no profit from it, they escaped the penalty, which then had to be borne by the coachman, with the alternative of imprisonment.

These regulations were notoriously broken with impunity every day in the year. Passengers sat on the luggage if they felt so inclined; coachmen got drunk, drove furiously, or allowed the deadly amateur to drive; luggage was stacked to alpine heights; guards discharged their blunderbusses everywhere from sheer wantonness or on joyful occasions; passengers were carried to excess; and, indeed, every provision of every Act was flagrantly violated, generally of malice aforethought, but not seldom from very ignorance and the sheer inability of coach-proprietors and the others concerned to keep themselves fully informed on all points. The waggoners especially found it difficult, with the best will in the world, to keep the law; and even the pikemen at the turnpike gates, who were the sworn enemies of all the users of the roads, but who were bound to comply with certain regulations, often heedlessly omitted the formulæ as by law established, and became liable to penalties.

This lengthy and confusing series of Acts brought into existence that contemptible parasite, the Professional Informer. By those provisions, which awarded sometimes the whole penalty, and in other cases the half or two-thirds, or merely one-third, at the discretion of the magistrates, to those persons who would discover these infringements of the law to the authorities, the Sneak became an institution, wholly supported by the involuntary contributions of the coaching world. Informers swarmed on every road, and their operations were conducted with a legal astuteness and business acumen that would have made the fortunes of these gentry if they had directed their talents into more reputable channels. For although Parliament had created the Informer, it is not to be thought that he was liked by any class. He was held to be a necessary evil, as from fear of him offenders might be made to mend their ways, and so the roads be preserved. The end, it was thought, justified the means employed. No one knew the Acts of Parliament through and through, inside out and up and down, as this detested class. Informers sometimes worked singly; at others they constituted themselves into firms, with offices and tame attorneys, and staffs of travelling spies, whose travelling expenses were well repaid, with a handsome profit besides, by the materials for informations which they had obtained on the roads. Indeed, it was stated that on certain routes the waggoners paid annual sums to the informers, as a kind of quit-rent against prosecutions; for, as an informer in a confidential moment was heard to declare, the Acts were so many and so conflicting that it was impossible to travel without a breach of the law.

The greatest of all informers was Byers, who combined the occupation with that of a small shopkeeper in the outskirts of London. The acts of Byers may be traced through many old files of newspapers, and even then you shall not discover his Christian name; for in those records it is generally “Byers again!” or “Byers appeared before So-and-so charging What’s-his-name.” Thus do we speak of the great in war, in science, in literature; for custom tells only of a Wellington, a Newton, or a Thackeray. We know their titles and Christian names, but suppress them to gain a grand and monumental simplicity. To reduce the argument to a logical conclusion, Byers was a greater than these, for we do not even know his baptismal cognomen. He is a classic now, for Barham accorded him the honour of an allusion and an explanatory note in one of the Ingoldsby Legends—the “Lay of St. Nicholas,” where we read:—

The note describes him as “The Prince of Peripatetic Informers, and terror of Stage Coachmen, when such things were. Alack! alack! the Railroads have ruined his ‘vested interest.’” Time has so dimmed the meaning of both the reference and the explanation that modern commentators are generally puzzled by both. What he was we have stated; what became of him when railways ruined coaching and his business at once, we do not know. Some few details of his career have survived. He originally seems to have been in the employ of one Johnson, an informer, in 1824, when he obtained convictions against coachmen at Dover and Canterbury, and on the Brighton Road; but by the summer of the next year he had gone into the business for himself, and presently became the Napoleon of the profession. 1825 was a busy year with him. In August he summoned a coach-proprietor named Selby for that “on the 28th day of July he did suffer and permit a stage-coach belonging to him, and drawn by two horses only, to carry more than the usual number of passengers on the roof.” Moreover, he was summoned again for not having his name painted on the door of the coach. After much cross-swearing and discussion, the Brighton bench fined the coach-proprietor £5 and 16s. costs.

In Bath, in the November of the same year, Byers laid so many as thirty-four informations. The penalties to which the unfortunate coach-proprietors and others were liable in this prodigious batch were estimated at £500, but the newspaper reports of that time do not tell us the total of the fines actually inflicted, so we are unable to form any idea of the profits realised by the enterprising Byers in this Western raid. The petty and tyrannical nature of the prosecutions may be gathered from one instance before the Bathforum (for such was the style and title of the local bench) magistrates. A farmer was summoned for not having his Christian name and surname painted on the right or off-side of his waggon, and mulcted in 10s. and costs, while another for the same mistake in the position was fined 5s. and costs; the magistrates, in addition, holding that the strict letter of the law required not only the name of the owner and that of the town, but the street as well.

A great sheaf of informations was laid by him at Brighton in July 1827. William Blunden, proprietor of a stage-van, was summoned—not for carrying more passengers than he should, but for not having painted on his conveyance the number of passengers his licence entitled him to carry. A £5 fine was the result, of which Byers was awarded 50s. and costs. In another of his cases on this occasion the informer did not come off victorious. It was not his master-mind that had prepared the cases, but that of one of his hirelings, Aaron Rolland, and there was a fatal flaw in this particular one. It was a summons against Snow, the Brighton proprietor, for carrying passengers in excess; but, unfortunately for the prosecution, the coach was not plying for hire on that occasion, and Byers suffered defeat.

In this same year Byers was arrested and imprisoned for debt, but he was soon out again and prosecuting with redoubled energy. In November William Cripps, of the firm of Cripps & Wilkins, coach-proprietors, appeared at his instance before the Brighton magistrates, charged with permitting a name other than that of the licensees to be painted on his coach. The name was that of the afterwards celebrated Henry Stevenson, of the “Age.” It was placed there with an idea of securing patronage for the coach, and it was contended in court, that forty names might so be painted on the panel of the coach, if the proprietors liked. But the bench held otherwise, and imposed two mitigated penalties of 50s. each with costs, it being the first offence.

In August 1830, Byers procured three fines of £10 each and costs in an overloading case against Francis Vickers. In this affair the methods of himself and his spies were disclosed, for it appeared that the spy was watching the coaches from the upstairs window of a public-house. But already, for some time past, one of Byers’ men had set up for himself as a coachman’s lawyer, and, coming from the opposition camp, of course brought with him a great deal of special knowledge. From this time Byers’ business waned. The early steam-carriages of 1826 had foreshadowed the end of the coaching age, and when railways came the informers’ business was ruined. True, they might still make a trifle out of the surviving waggons, and it was possible, now and again, to catch a pikeman not giving a ticket when toll was paid, or not having his own name painted on his toll-board as collector when he had succeeded some other pikeman; but the penalties for these offences were, like the offences themselves, trivial. In short, informing ceased to pay its travelling expenses.

Among the many enactments for the protection of the public was one forbidding all four horses galloping at the same time. Mail-contractors, however, finding that they could not maintain the speed necessary to fulfil their contracts without galloping, generally secured a certain number of exceptionally fast trotters, for which they paid high prices, in order to have one in every team. Such an one was pretty widely known down the road as “the Parliamentary horse.” Proprietors of fast day-coaches, however, infringed this provision of the Act every day, as indeed every Act was continually infringed.

The last years of coaching were marked by a reduction in the duties on stage-carriages, long urged by the coaching interest, and introduced by the Act of August 24th, 1839. It was a grudging reduction, and came too late to be of much relief to an oppressed industry. Up to that date the mileage duty on passengers was on the graduated scale of 1d. a mile if licensed to carry four; 1½d. if licensed for six; 2d. for nine; 2½d. for twelve; 3d. for fifteen; and 3½d. for eighteen; whether running fully loaded or not. It was always open for proprietors to license for more or less, according to the season or their own requirements; but, on the other hand, if in view of a slack season they licensed for a small number and then on one of their journeys took up additional passengers, they were liable, on conviction, to a heavy penalty. In addition, there was a duty of 1d. a mile on the coach itself. The concession of 1839 reduced this impost to a halfpenny a mile, and provided a graduated passenger duty by which a coach licensed for not more than six persons paid 1d. a mile; up to ten, 1½d.; not more than thirteen, 2d.; not more than sixteen, 2½d., and so on to the impossible number of twenty-two, when the license would be 3½d.

According to a return made for 1838, the mileage duty paid on stage-coaches in England for that year was £166,625, showing a total mileage for those twelve months of 40,530,000. The Government thus apparently sacrificed £83,312 10s. in reducing the mileage duty by one-half; but the greatness of the sacrifice was more apparent than real, for already railways had begun and coaches were being discontinued on every hand, while a small railway passenger duty of one-eighth of a penny a mile made up for its smallness by the increase in travelling that railways brought.

Still later, the passenger duty on coaches was further reduced, and made 1½d. a mile on any number of passengers; while the annual stage-carriage license was reduced from £5 to £3 3s., and the licence for each coachman or guard from £1 5s. to 5s.

The harassed coach-proprietors, or those who still existed, were properly grateful for the reduction made, for it just turned the scale in many coaching accounts, and so kept on those public conveyances where otherwise they would have been commercially impossible. The railway magnates, who had by that time become a power in the land, could afford to influence the Government in favour of these concessions, for the coaches had already been driven off the direct routes, and were no longer formidable competitors of the locomotive. They had, indeed, become merely feeders to the victorious railways.