To the Editor of the “Exeter and Plymouth Gazette.”
Sir,
You will oblige me by inserting the following in your paper, which may be amusing to some of your readers:—
It is a fact well known that when the subscription coaches started, in the year 1812, William Hanning, Esq., a magistrate of the county of Somerset, residing near Ilminster, was a strenuous advocate for their support, and it was in great measure owing to his exertions that they were established. This gentleman, from some motive or other, or perhaps from his known fondness for new speculations, is now the avowed supporter of a new coach, called, above all other names, the “Defiance,” and it is professedly meant as an opposition to the subscription coaches. It started from Exeter for the first time on Sunday, April 13th, 1823. One really would have supposed that under such patronage a name better calculated to keep the peace of his Majesty’s liege subjects, and to preserve harmony and good-will among men, would have been adopted for this coach, and that some other day might have been selected for its first appearance. However, the “Defiance” started on the Sunday afternoon, amidst the shouts and imprecations of guards, coachmen, and ostlers, contending one against the other, and having one ill-looking outside passenger, whose name was Revenge.
An interesting occurrence took place at Ilminster. The new “Defiance” was expected to arrive there, on its way from town, between nine and ten on the Sunday morning, and it was determined to honour it with ringing the church bells. The heroes of the belfry were all assembled, every man at his rope’s end, “their souls on fire, and eager for the fray;” the Squire was stationed about a mile from Ilminster, and seeing the coach, as he thought, coming at a distance, he galloped through the street in triumph, gave the signal, and off went the merry peal. Every eye was soon directed to this new and delightful object, when, guess the consternation that prevailed upon seeing, instead of the new “Defiance,” the poor old Subscription trotting nimbly up to the George Inn door, and Tom Goodman, the guard, playing on the key-bugle, with his usual excellence, “Should auld acquaintance be forgot?” The scene is more easily imagined than described; it would have been a fine subject for Hogarth. The bells were now ordered to cease; the Squire walked off and was seen no more. Honest Tom was not accustomed to this kind of reception; he had enlivened the town with his merry notes a thousand times, but now every one looked on him with disdain, as if they did not know him. He could scarcely suppress his feelings; but after a few minutes’ reflection he mounted his seat again, and, casting a good-tempered look to all around him, went off, playing a tune which the occurrence and the sublimity of the day seemed to dictate to him—“Through all the changing scenes of life.” Some of the good people of Ilminster who were going to church admired Tom’s behaviour, and said it had a very good effect. Tom arrived safe with his coach at Exeter about one o’clock, having started from London one hour and a half after the “Defiance,” and performed the journey in nineteen hours and a half. The “Defiance” arrived about an hour after the Subscription; but the proprietors of the latter did not approve of this system, and gave Tom a reprimand, directing him in future to keep on his regular steady pace,[21-*] and not to notice the other coach, which he promised to attend to, but said he only wished to show them, on their first journey, the way along. This, under all the circumstances, was admitted as an excuse. Tom went away much pleased with the adventures of his journey, and said he should never meet the Squire again without playing on his bugle “Hark to the merry Christ Church bells.”
I beg leave to remain, Mr. Editor,
Your obliged Servant,
A Friend to the Subscription Coaches.
All the world is a Stage Coach: it has its insides and outsides, and
Coachmen in their time see much fun.”—Old Play.
Tune—“The Huntsman Winds his Horn.”
Some people delight in the sports of the turf
Whilst others love only the chace,
But to me, the delight above all others is
A good Coach that can go the pace.
There are some, too, for whom the sea has its charms
And who’ll sing of it night and morn,
But give me a Coach with its rattling bars
And a Guard who can blow his horn.
But give me a Coach, &c.
When the Coach comes round to the office door,
What a crowd to see it start,
And the thoughts of the drive, cheer up many who leave
Their friends with an aching heart.
The prads are so anxiously tossing their heads,
And a nosegay does each one adorn,
When the Dragsman jumps up, crying out “sit fast,”
While the shooter blows his horn.
When the Dragsman jumps up, &c.
Now merrily rolls the Coach along,
Like a bird she seems to fly,
As the girls all look out from the roadside Inns,
For a wink from the Dragsman’s eye,
How they long for a ride with the man who’s the pride
Of each village through which he is borne,
On that Coach which he tools with so skilful a hand,
While the Guard plays a tune on his horn.
On that Coach, &c.
How the girls all dote on the sight of the Coach,
And the Dragsman’s curly locks,
As he rattles along with eleven and four,
And a petticoat on the box.
That box is his home, his teams are his pride,
And he ne’er feels downcast or forlorn,
When he lists to the musical sound of the bars,
And the tune from the shooter’s horn.
When he lists, &c.
I have sung of the joys one feels on a Coach,
And the beauty there is in a team,
So let us all hope they may ne’er be destroyed
By the rascally railroads and steam.
There are still some good friends who’ll stick by the old trade,
And who truly their absence would mourn,
“So here’s a health to the Dragsman, success to the bars,
And the Guard who blows his horn.”
So here’s a health, &c.
Tune—“The Queen, God bless her.”
1.
See that splendid fast Coach, well-named “TALLY HO,”
With prads that can come the long trot;
Do their twelve miles an hour—like flashes they go,
Spinning smoothly along as a top.
2.
With Ward and John Hex, or Hardcastle and Judd,
How devoted they are to the fair;
In their vests there you find the red rose in the bud,
Perfuming the Summer soft air.
Tally Ho, &c., &c.
3.
Four within and twelve out, see they usually start,
And the horn sounding right merrily;
Good humour and glee do these gay lads impart,
And their management’s right to a T.
4.
But, how shall we grieve, when the fam’d “Tally Ho,”
Shares the fate of those now long gone by?
Yet—we’ll toast its fond mem’ry wherever we go,
For the sound of its name shall ne’er die.
Tally Ho, &c., &c.
Printed by Jas. Wade, 18, Tavistock-street, Covent-garden.
