HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES—DRIVES TO VALENCIENNES WITH FREDERICK YATES—MEET A DANCING BEAR—RESULT—WHEEL CARRIAGES IN TOWNS—STATE OF THE PUBLIC STREETS—GAY'S DESCRIPTION OF THEM—HACKNEY COACHES—TAYLOR, THE WATER POET—ROBBERIES IN LONDON—FIRST INTRODUCTION OF OMNIBUSES.

CHAPTER XVI.

In addition to the splendid turns-out of the members of the Coaching and Four-in-Hand Club, every cavalry regiment and many infantry corps possess a regimental "drag," which is always well horsed and usually well driven. During the time I served in the army such a thing was unknown, and the only opportunities officers had of driving were when travelling by stage-coach, or when a tandem was improvised in the barrack-yard.

Many a hairbreadth escape have I had from one of these breakneck vehicles. When at a private tutor's at Donnington, I and a young companion—alas! now no more—hired a tandem from Botham, of the "Pelican," Newbury, to take us to Reading. Safely should we have arrived there but for a drove of oxen which met us on our way. The result was the accident related in a previous chapter, and my ankle was dislocated.

My next attempt was when I was on the Staff of the Duke of Wellington, at Cambrai. Frederick Yates, then in the Commissariat Department, afterwards lessee of the Adelphi Theatre, was anxious, like myself, to visit an amateur performance by the officers stationed at Valenciennes; and it was arranged that we should drive over in my dennet, to which he was to add a leader.

All went well until we approached the plains of Denain, when a man leading a dancing bear so frightened our steeds that they set off at a gallop, overturning us in a dry ditch. Unfortunately for me, the handle of my sword, which I had stowed away in front of the apron, came in contact with my body and broke a rib; so, instead of enjoying my visit, I was laid up for a week at a not over-comfortable hotel. This was my second and last appearance in a tandem, and I strongly recommend those who value their limbs never to trust themselves to such a conveyance. In earlier days I have driven four horses many hundred miles on the road and through the crowded streets of the metropolis, and never once came to grief.

Let me now refer to the use of wheel carriages in towns, which is not of very ancient date among the English people. During the reign of James I. the drivers of both public and private carriages had no other accommodation than a bar, or driver's chair, placed very low behind the horses; in the following reign they rode postilion fashion.

After the Restoration they appeared with whip and spurs, and towards the end of the century mounted a coachman's box. This box, covered with a hammer-cloth, was in reality a box, and within it, or in a leather pouch attached to it, were tools for mending broken wheels or shivered panels, in the event of accidents occurring, which were by no means uncommon; in consequence, first, of the defective construction of the vehicles, which, according to Davenant, were "uneasily hung, and so narrow that he took them for sedans on wheels;" in the second place, from the clumsy driving of carmen in the crowded thoroughfares; and, lastly and principally, from the nature of the streets themselves, full of all the worst perils a coachman could have to encounter. The state of the street ways, where the ruts lay half a yard deep, did not admit of rapid driving, and we read, even in the days of Charles II., of the Royal coach being upset twice in getting from the City to Westminster.

At this date, and for some generations after, the custom was, when ladies traversed the city in carriages, for the gentlemen gallants to accompany them on horseback, riding in advance, or on each side. These formed a body-guard, not at all unnecessary or superfluous, looking to the swarms of "scourers," "knights of the road," and "goshawks" who made free warren of London streets and scrupled at no act of violence. The picture Gay has left us of the street ways in the beginning of the eighteenth century will form some estimate of what they were at an earlier period:—

The first hirable vehicles in London were the hackney-coaches, so called not from the village of Hackney, as commonly supposed, but from the old word "to hack," or let on hire. The first hackney-coaches were stout-built vehicles, fitted for the rough roads of the time; they made their appearance originally in 1625, and were kept at certain inns, where they had to be sent for when wanted, and these were only at this time twenty in number.

In a proclamation issued by Charles I., in 1635, the King prohibited the general and promiscuous use of hackney-coaches in London, Westminster, and their suburbs, as being "not only a great disturbance to His Majesty, his dearest consort the Queen, the nobility, and others of place and degree, but the streets were so pestered and the pavements broken up that the common passage was thereby hindered." It was therefore commanded that "no hired coaches should be used in London except to travel three miles out of the same."

Two years after the foregoing prohibition the King granted a licence for fifty hackney-coachmen in and about London and Westminster, to keep twelve horses each. This licence was extended to other cities and towns. In course of time the increase of street carriages called forth the indignation of Taylor the water-poet. What would that renowned king of scullers, whose wonted boast was that he had often ferried Shakspeare from Whitehall to Paris Garden, and Ben Jonson from Bankside to the Rose and Hope playhouses, have said had he lived in the present days? Probably the poor water rhymer would have drowned himself in his own element, or at least would have drowned his cares in a more spirited mixture. What a fearful picture did he draw of the calamity that assailed his trade!

"We poor watermen have not the least cause to complain against any conveyance that belongs to persons of worth or quality, but only against the caterpillar swarm of hirelings. They have undone my poor trade, whereof I am a member. This swarm of trade spoilers, like grasshoppers or caterpillars of Egypt, have so overrun the land that we can get no living on the water; for every day, if the Court be at Whitehall, they do rob us of our livings, and carry five hundred and sixty fares daily from us. I pray you but note the streets and the chambers or lodgings in Fleet Street or the Strand, how they are pestered with coaches, especially after a masque or play at Court, where even the very earth shakes and trembles, the casements shatter, totter, patter, and clatter, and such a confused noise is made that a man can neither sleep, speak, hear, write, nor eat his dinner or supper quiet for them; besides, their tumbling din, like counterfeit thunder, doth sour wine, beer, and ale, almost abominally, to the impairing of their healths that drink it, and the making of many a victualler's trade fallen."

In a publication entitled "The Thief," Taylor writes:—

The London shopkeepers, too, bitterly complained.

"Formerly," they said, "when ladies and gentlemen walked in the streets there was a chance of obtaining customers to inspect and purchase our commodities; but now they whisk past in the coaches before our apprentices have time to cry out 'What d'ye lack?'" Taylor above referred to, does not appear to have entertained a very high opinion of the tradesmen of his day, for he writes:—

Hackney-coaches were admitted into Hyde Park before the year 1694, but were expelled at that period, through the singular circumstance of some persons of distinction having been insulted by several women in masks; riding there in that description of vehicle.

In 1728, the robberies were so frequent in the streets of London, Westminster, and parts adjacent, that Lord Townshend issued a notice offering a reward of £40 "for each felon convict returned from transportation before the expiration of the term for which he or she was transported, who shall, by the means of such discovery, be brought to condign punishment." It appears by the above, that the murders, beatings, and robberies were perpetrated in a great degree by returned convicts, Hackney-coaches being their special mark, as the following paragraph which appeared in the "Postman" of the 19th of October, 1728, will prove:—

"The persons authorised by Government to employ men to drive hackney-coaches, have made great complaints for want of trade, occasioned by the increase of street robbers; so that people, especially in an evening, choose rather to walk than to ride in a coach, on account that they are in a readier posture to defend themselves, or call out for help if attacked. Meantime, it is apparent that, whereas a figure for driving of an hackney-coach used lately to be sold for about £60, besides paying the usual duties to the Commissioners for licensing, they are at this time, for the reasons aforesaid, sold for £3 per figure goodwill."

The conveyance now known as the omnibus was borrowed from our Continental neighbours, for it was in existence in France two centuries ago. Its rise and progress may not prove uninteresting. Carriages on hire had long been established in Paris, and were let out by the day or hour from the sign of St. Fiacre.

In 1662 a Royal decree of Louis XIV. authorised the establishment of a carrosse À cinq sous, got by a company, with the Duke de Rohan and two other noblemen at the head of it. The decree stated that these conveyances, of which there were originally seven, built to carry eight persons, should run at fixed hours, full or empty, to and from the extreme parts of Paris; the object being to convey those who could not afford to hire carriages.

The public inauguration of the new vehicles took place on the 18th of March, 1662, and was attended with much state. Three of the coaches started from the Porte St. Antoine, and four from the Luxembourg. Previous to their setting out, the principal legal functionary addressed the drivers, pointing out to them their duties to the public. After this harangue, the procession started, escorted by cavalry, the infantry lined the streets to keep them clear.

Writers disagree as to the reception these conveyances met with. Sauval, in his Antiquities of Paris, affirms that the populace hooted the drivers and broke the windows of the carriages with stones; while, on the other hand, Madame Perrier, sister to Pascal, describes the joy with which these "twopenny-halfpenny busses" were received.

It appears, too, that the King took a trip in one at St. Germain, and a piÈce de circonstance was got up at the ThÉÂtre Marais, entitled "L'Intrigue des Carrosses À Cinq Sous." Strange to say, when the fashionable Parisians ceased to patronise the omnibus, it went completely out of favour, as the poorer class declined to travel in it. Hence the company failed.

In 1827 a society entitled "Entreprise GÉnÉrale des Omnibus" again introduced the system, which was thus alluded to in the newspapers of 1829:—

"The omnibus is a long coach, carrying fifteen or eighteen people, all inside. Of these carriages there were about half-a-dozen some months ago, and they have been augmented since; their profits are said to have repaid the outlay within the first year; the proprietors, among whom is M. Lafitte, the banker, are making a large revenue out of Parisian sous, and speculation is still alive."

During the struggle of the three days in July, 1830, the accidental upsetting of one of these vehicles suggested an idea that barricades could be formed out of a number of them; and this plan was tried and followed out.

Shortly after the introduction of the omnibus in Paris, a public-spirited individual started two of these carriages in London, which ran from the Bank of England to the Yorkshire Stingo, in the New-road, and were called "Shillibeers," after the introducer. Each of these vehicles carried twenty-two passengers inside, with only the driver and conductor outside; each omnibus was drawn by three horses, abreast, and the fare was one shilling for the whole distance, and sixpence for half. Since that time the fares have been considerably lowered, and outside passengers are taken.