Many changes, meanwhile, were taking place in the public carriages.
Of the mail-coaches I need say nothing at all. Numerous books exist which retell all those romances of the road which even in these days of motor-cars cannot be altogether forgotten. The Golden Age of coaching was at hand, and no print-shop is complete without some score or more of carefully coloured engravings of one or other of “the Mails.” They bore particular names—there were Flying Machines and Telegraphs and the like—and they were larger than in the days when Palmer had inaugurated the system, but that was all.[49]
Coming to such public vehicles, however, as were in general confined to the metropolis, we find many changes.
The old hackney-coaches still plied for hire. They had their particular stands, and the fares were subject to strict, though sometimes exceedingly quaint, regulations. The first section of the new _Orders_ issued in 1821 may be quoted as bearing upon the structure of the hackneys.
“It is ordered, constituted, and ordained, that, from and after the four-and-twentieth Day of _June_ next ensuing the Day of the Date of these Presents, the Perch of every Coach shall be Ten Feet long at the least; and such Coach [shall] have cross Leather Braces before, and not braced down, but shall hang upon a Level, and not higher behind than before, and to be decent, clean, strong, and warm, with Glass Windows on each Side, or Shutters with Glasses of Nine Inches in Length, and Six Inches in Breadth in each Shutter; and large enough to carry Four Persons conveniently; and the Horses to every such Coach shall be able and sufficient for the Business when such Coach and Horses come from Home, to Ply; on a Penalty not exceeding Ten Shillings, at the Discretion of the said Commissioners, to be paid by the Owner of the License, if the same be not rented out, and in Case the same shall be rented out, then upon a Renter thereof.”
Leigh Hunt could find little good to say of them. Says he, quoting from a supposititious poetess:—
“Thou inconvenience! thou hungry crop For all corn! thou small creeper to and fro Who while thou goest ever seem’st to stop, And fiddle-faddle standest while you go; I’the morning, freighted with a weight of woe, Unto some Lazar-house thou journiest, And in the evening tak’st a double row Of dowdies, for some dance or party drest, Besides the goods meanwhile thou movest east and west.
