Opposition—A quick change—How to do it—Accident to the Yeovil mail—A gallop for our lives—Unconscious passengers—Western whips—Parliamentary obstruction.

Although opposition was fierce, certain rules of etiquette and honour were most rigidly observed on the road, which rendered immunity from accidents much more general than would have been supposed. It was an understood thing that no coach should pass another actually in motion unless invited to do so by the coachman driving the leading coach at the time. The race became much more exciting in cases where there was a little diversity in the roads between two points in the destination.

The change in the fast coaches, where the horsekeeper and his mate knew their business, was effected in a minute and a half; and, like everything else connected with the fast coaches, required to be done strictly according to rule.

The man receiving the leader, near or off-side, seizes the rein behind the saddle or pad, and draws it out of the head-terret of the wheeler, then, doubling it several times, he passes of it through the terret, unhooks the coch-eyes the traces, and the leaders are free. Though still coupled they should be accustomed to walk aside a few paces, out of the way of the coach.

The horsekeeper at the heads of the wheelers should first double the rein through the terret, to prevent its being trodden upon and cut; then, by raising the end of the pole, unhook the pole-chain, which will admit of the horse standing back in his work, and enable the traces to be easily lifted off the roller-bolts, the wheelers being uncoupled before he leaves their heads.

The fresh team, when brought out, should be placed behind the spot where the coach pulls up, so that they may walk straight up into their places without having to be turned round, which always entails delay. The fresh team being “in-spanned,” the coachman or guard (or both) assisting in running and buckling the reins, the business is complete.

However quickly the change may be effected, it behoves a coachman to look round before he takes his reins, as a very trifling omission may give rise to serious delay, if not dangerous trouble. I have known the most careful horsekeepers forget to couple the wheel-horses, which, especially in the dark, when it is more likely to happen, is an omission nothing but the greatest judgment and patience on the part of the coachman can render harmless, since most coach-teams, more frequently than not, jump forward into their work, and are not so easily stopped.

It is in cases of this description that so many accidents are prevented, in the present day, by the use of that admirable invention the patent break. We are indebted to the French for this very useful appliance, and although many wheel-horses are spoiled by the too frequent use of it, the number of accidents and broken knees which are averted must be untold.

To pull up a heavily-loaded coach on a descent requires strength of arm, as well as power in the wheelers, to stop it; whereas, after having stopped the coach with a good strong break, the pulling up of the horses is comparatively easy. How different from the days when we had nothing but the old skid (or slipper) and chain, which was very little used except on the heavy coaches and over the most severe pitches, on account of the loss of time occasioned by its adjustment and removal.

Accidents, however, are not always to be avoided by pulling-up, as I shall show by relating an incident which occurred to me many years ago in the West of England, in which nothing could have saved our limbs or necks but my having recourse to the opposite alternative, and keeping the team at the top of their speed for dear life.

I was indulging in my favourite pastime and driving the “Yeovil” mail. We were full inside, and there were two gentlemen besides the professional coachman, Jack Everett, outside. I had a little short-legged quick team, belonging to Mrs. Stevens, of the Halfmoon, from Crewkerne to Chard. They were accustomed to do this ground very fast, but would not stop an ounce down the hills.

The roads being hard and slippery, and, having a load, I took the precaution to put on the shoe to come down Chard Hill. We were swinging along merrily when suddenly the skid chain, in jumping over a stone, parted. This catastrophe allowed the coach to slip uncomfortably and suddenly upon the shoulders and cruppers of the wheelers, and one of them, being a bit of a rogue, evinced his disapprobation by giving several sudden bolting lurches and throwing himself upon the pole.

In one of these evolutions more sudden and violent than the rest the pole snapped off in the futchells!

Here was a predicament! Half-way down one of the ugliest hills in England, with a resolute frightened team and a broken pole. Nothing for it but to put them along and keep them galloping. The broken pole bobbing and dancing along at the end of the chains helped me materially to do this. The leaders finding the bars at the end of the whippletree all gone mad, took the hint and went off as hard as they could lay legs to the ground. My only care was to keep them straight, and the pace so good as to prevent the coach getting upon the lock, in which case we must have gone over.

It was a fearful moment, and never in all my coaching experience have I passed through such a crisis.

“Let ’em have it!” cries Jack Everett.

“Nothing but the pace can save us!” cries Fred North, the guard.

She rocked, they galloped, we shouted to encourage them. Fortunately they were very evenly matched in pace. If there had been one shirk it must have been fatal.

Providence protected us on this occasion, and I had the good fortune to keep the pace up till we got upon a level, and then gradually stopped her, and, by way of a finale, we had a rattling good kicking match before we could get the wheelers away from the coach.

I have been in many coach accidents, some of which, I regret to say, have been much more serious in their results, but I always consider that our lives were in greater jeopardy for the four or five minutes after that pole snapped than during any other epoch of my life.

Rarely, if ever, has there been a similar accident upon a plain open road. Poles are often snapped by inexperienced coachmen getting upon the lock in attempting to turn without room, and trusting to the strength of the pole to drag the coach across the road.

Not a hundred yards from the place where I pulled up the mail stood the yard and premises of a working wheelwright, who improvised, in a marvellously short time, a temporary pole, and by attaching the main-bar to a chain leading from the foot-bed, and splicing it to the pole, we did not lose three-quarters of an hour by the whole contretemps. Moreover, strange to say, until the wheelers began trying to write their names on the front-boot at the bottom of the hill, the four inside passengers were perfectly unconscious that there had been anything wrong! One of the party—a lady—remarked to me that “the mail travelled so delightfully fast that it appeared to have wings instead of wheels.”

When the iron monster had invaded England, and the investment of the principal towns was nearly complete, the last corner which remained to the coaches was the far West, where the business was carried on with great energy and spirit to the very last.

Exeter became the great centre. About seventy coaches left the city daily, Sundays excepted—the “Dorchester” and “London,” the “Falmouth,” “Plymouth,” “Bath,” “Launceston,” and “Truro” mails. The “London” mail (direct), commonly called the “Quicksilver,” was said to be the fastest mail in England, performing the journey (one hundred and sixty-six miles) in twenty hours, except during fogs or heavy snow. This mail was driven out of London by Charles Ward (now the proprietor of the Paxton Yard, Knightsbridge), who left the White Horse Cellars (now the Bath Hotel), Piccadilly, at eight every evening, until Mr. Chaplin shifted his booking office to the Regent Circus.

The numerous coaches working between Exeter and the west coast were principally horsed by Cockrane, New London Inn; Pratt, Old London (now the Buda), and Stevens, Halfmoon Hotel.

The day and night travelling was kept up until fairly driven off by the common enemy.

During the two or three years before the railway was opened this part of England became the warm corner for coaching; and all the talent of the road, having been elbowed out of other places, flocked to the West. Charles and Henry Ward, Tim Carter, Jack Everett, Bill Harbridge, Bill Williams, and Wood, not forgetting Jack Goodwin, the guard, who was one of the best key-buglers that ever rode behind a coach.

This incursion of talent aroused the energies of some of the Devonshire whips engaged at that time, M. Hervey, Sam Granville, Harry Gillard, Paul Collyns, William Skinner, etc.

There were four Johnsons, all first-class coachmen, sons of a tailor at Marlborough, who were working up to the last days of coaching. Anthony Deane—or Gentleman Deane, as he was commonly called—drove the only mail left after the opening of the rail to Plymouth—the “Cornish” mail to Launceston.

After she was taken off the road he did not long survive, but died at Okehampton. He was a fine coachman, a good nurse, and an admirable timekeeper.

The “Telegraph,” when first put on by Stevens of the Halfmoon, left Exeter at 6.30 A.M., breakfasted at Ilminster, dined at the Star at Andover, and reached Hyde Park Corner at 9.30 P.M., thus performing a journey of one hundred and sixty-six miles in fifteen hours, including stoppages. There was some encouragement to coaching in those days. A good mail was a real good property. The “Quicksilver” mail and the “Dorchester” mail, alone, paid the rent (twelve hundred pounds per annum) of the New London Inn. The profits of the former were a thousand pounds per annum; and those of the “Dorchester” two hundred pounds; the profits of the first-named being augmented by the fact of the booking office, both ways, being at Exeter. The mails from London on the second of each month were always a little behind time, being so heavily laden with the magazines and periodicals.

In spite of the tremendous pace at which the mails travelled, accidents were very rare. All coaches were heavily laden about Christmas time with parcels and presents. On one occasion, the “Defiance” from Exeter, with an unreasonable top-load, was overtaken by a dense fog, and the coachman (Beavis), getting off the road before he got to Ilminster, was upset and the driver killed upon the spot. An eminent friend and patron of the road, Mr. E. A. Sanders, took the matter in hand, and collected upwards of eight hundred pounds for the widow and children, with which, as the latter grew up, he started them all in life.

There were many fast coaches besides the ordinary six-insider, such as the “Balloon” and “Traveller,” from Pratt’s, New London, the “Defiance,” a fast coach, from the Clarence Hotel, Congleton, the “Favourite” (subscription), and several others.

In the year 1835, all the Exeter and London coaches were stopped by heavy snow, at Mere, on the borders of Salisbury Plain. Amongst the passengers were the late Earl of Devon, the Bishop of Exeter, Mr. Charles Buller, and seven other members of Parliament, all on their way to attend the opening of the session. They were delayed a whole week.

As the London coaches were gradually knocked off by the advance of the rail, the competition upon other roads out of Exeter became more rife, and the opposition warmer.