Читать книгу An Old Coachman's Chatter, with Some Practical Remarks on Driving - Edward Corbett - Страница 5

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By the beginning of the new century the mail coach system appears to have begun to settle into its place pretty well. Mr. Vidler had the contract for the coaches, which he continued to hold for at least a quarter of a century, and appears to have brought much spirit to bear upon the work.

In the year 1820 he was evidently engaged in making experiments with the view of making the coaches run lighter after the horses, and also to test their stability. He writes to Mr. Johnson, the Superintendent of mail coaches, May 15, saying, "As below, I send you the particulars of an experiment made this morning with a mail coach with the five hundredweight in the three different positions," and he accompanied this letter with cards, of which I give an exact copy.

Post Coach.	Mail.
77 lbs. to remove with 5 cwt. on front wheels.	70 lbs. to remove with 5 cwt. on front wheels.
74 lbs. to remove with 5 cwt. on hind wheels.	65 lbs. to remove with 5 cwt. on hind wheels.
68 lbs. to remove with 5 cwt. in centre of the coach.	61 lbs. to remove with 5 cwt. in centre of coach.
Mail.	Balloon.
56 lbs. suspended over a pulley moved the mail on a horizontal plane.	It required 60 lbs. to move the Balloon.
Weight 18 cwt. 20 lbs.	Weight 18 cwt. 1 qr. 19 lbs.
Fore wheels 3 feet 8 inches.	Fore wheels 3 feet 6 inches.
Hind wheels 4 feet 6 inches.	Hind wheels 4 feet 10 inches.
The fore wheel raised on a block, stood at 26 inches without upsetting.	The fore wheel of the Balloon would only stand at 17.
	The hind at 16½.
Double-bodied Coach With Fore and Hind Boot.
Weight 14 cwt.	The fore and hind wheels raised on blocks at 31 inches did not upset the coach.
Fore wheels 3 feet 8 inches.	It required only 35 lbs. to move this coach with 5 cwt. in front boot.
Hind wheels 4 feet 6 inches.	32 lbs. to move it with 5 cwt. in the hind boot.
28 lbs. suspended over a pulley moved this coach on a horizontal plane.	33¼ lbs. to move it with 5 cwt. in the centre of the body.

I confess I am not expert enough to quite understand all this, but I have been induced to place it before the reader, as it occupies little space, and may be of interest to those who have a practical acquaintance with mechanics. I am equally at a loss to say what sort of conveyance the Balloon or the Double-bodied Coach were.

The Postmaster-General, and those under him, appear to have always been ready to listen to any proposals or suggestions made to them for the improvement of coaches, even if, as in the case below, they were not very promising.

In the year 1811, the Rev. Mr. Milton tried to persuade the Postmaster-General to adopt a system of broad wheels to save the roads, and got it adopted by a Reading coach; but, as might be expected, it was found to add immensely to the draught, and is described as being the only coach which distressed the horses. The rev. gentleman must have been a commissioner of some turnpike trust, and had imbibed such a predilection for broad wheels for the sake of the roads, that he resembled the tanner, who affirmed that "there was nothing like leather."

Even without the wheels being broad, the difference between square tires and round tires is enormous. This was brought to my notice very strongly one summer when the round tires which were worn out were replaced by square ones. The difference to the horses in the draught was considerable, but it was most striking when going down hill, where the change made the difference of a notch or two in the brake.

But, without having broad wheels, coaches were by far the best customers the roads had. They paid large sums of money, and really benefited the roads, rather than injured them. A road is more easily kept in repair when it has a variety of traffic over it. When, as is commonly the case now, it is nearly all single horse work, the wheels and the horses always keep to the same tracks, and the new metal requires constant raking to prevent the road getting into ruts; whereas, with a variety in the traffic, the stone settles with little trouble.

Probably little or no alteration took place in the build of the mail coaches during Mr. Vidler's contract, but at the expiration of it the telegraph spring, the same as was at work under the other coaches, was substituted for what was termed the mail coach spring, which had hitherto been in use as the hind spring. This alteration had the desirable effect of shortening the perch, which was favourable to draught, and, at the same time, it let down the body, which was of a square build, lower down between the springs, which added to the stability. The same axles and wheels were continued, only that the tires, instead of being put on in "stocks," were like those on other coach wheels fastened on in one circle.

As late, however, as the year 1839, the post-office authorities did not appear to be quite satisfied, as an enquiry was instituted; but I cannot find that any change of much value was suggested, and certainly none was the outcome of the enquiry. A Mr. J. M'Neil, in his evidence, said that there was no reason why, if the front part of the carriage was upon telegraph springs, the hind part should not be upon C springs. This, no doubt, would check the swing attendant upon the C spring, but might give a rather rude shock to the telegraph spring in doing so.

Four years later I find that the sum of thirty shillings was allowed for "drawing the pattern of a coach." The plan, however, was not forthcoming.

The following statement shows how large the business of the mail coach department had become by the year 1834, just half a century after its establishment. In England alone the number of miles travelled daily by mail coaches was 16,262. The amount of expense for forwarding the mails was £56,334; amount of mail guards' wages £6,743; the number of them employed was 247; the number of roads on which the coachman acted as guard was 34; the number of roads on which the patent coaches were used was 63, and on which not used was 51. The patent coaches, therefore, seem to have been brought into use slowly.

Mileage Warrants (October, 1834).

 3 at 1d.

 1 at 1¼d.

 34 at 1½d.

 42 at 2d.

 4 at 3d.

 1 at 3½d.

 1 at 4d.

 3 paid yearly sums.

 1 received no pay.

Perhaps I shall find no better place than this for introducing the reader more intimately to the mail guards. It will be seen that their numbers were very considerable, and as they had exceedingly onerous and responsible duties to perform (and that sometimes at the risk of their lives), and were the servants of the post-office, it would naturally have been expected that they should have been well paid. All that they received, however, from the post-office was ten shillings and sixpence a week and one suit of clothes, in addition to which they were entitled to a superannuation allowance of seven shillings a week, and frequently received assistance in illness. For the rest they had to trust to the tips given to them by the passengers, and I think it speaks well for the liberality of the travelling public that they were satisfied with their places; for having post-office duty to perform in every town they passed through, they could have had little opportunity to confer any benefits upon them.

On the subject of fees, too, their employers blew hot and cold. At one time, as has been observed, they made them an allowance for the loss of "vails"; and at another, as will be seen by the accompanying letter, the practice was condemned. A complaint had been received from a passenger respecting fees to coachmen and guards; but the letter will speak for itself.

"I have the honour of your letter, to which I beg leave to observe that neither coachman nor guard should claim anything of 'vails' as a right, having ten and sixpence per week each; but the custom too much prevailed of giving generally each a shilling at the end of the ground, but as a courtesy, not a right; and it is the absolute order of the office that they shall not use a word beyond solicitation. This is particularly strong to the guard, for, indeed, over the coachman we have not much power; but if he drives less than thirty miles, as your first did, they should think themselves well content with sixpence from each passenger." It goes on to say that the guard was suspended for his conduct.

I don't know how far coachmen were contented with sixpence in those days; but I know that so small a sum, if offered, would have given little satisfaction in later years, if not returned with thanks.

It will still be in the recollection of a good many that in the early days of railways the mail bags were only forwarded by a certain number of trains, which were called mail trains, and were in charge of a post-office guard. They may also call to mind that there used to be attached to those trains some carriages a good deal resembling the old mail coaches, and constructed to carry only four passengers in each compartment. So difficult is it to break altogether with old associations.

The guards were then placed on what was termed the treasury list, and their salary was raised to seventy pounds a year and upwards.

Before I pass on from the subject of the guards, I should like to put once again before the reader the onerous and, indeed, dangerous nature of their duties, and the admirable and faithful way in which they performed them. Among other reports of the same nature I have selected the following, which occurred in November, 1836:—

"The guard, Rands, a very old servant, on the Ludlow and Worcester line, states the coach and passengers were left at a place called Newnham, in consequence of the water being too deep for the coach to travel. I took the mail on horseback until I could procure a post chaise to convey the bags to meet the mail for London. This lost one hour and fourteen minutes, but only forty-five minutes' delay on the arrival in London."

Out of their very moderate pay, those of them working out of London, and in Ireland, were called upon to pay the sum of six shillings and sixpence quarterly to the armourer for cleaning arms, but in the country they looked after their own. How far these were kept in serviceable order I have no means of knowing, but judging from a very strange and melancholy accident which occurred in Ireland, those in charge of the armourers appear to have been kept in very fit condition for use, indeed, if not rather too much so. The report says, "As the Sligo mail was preparing to start from Ballina, the guard, Samuel Middleton, was in the act of closing the lid of his arm chest, when, unfortunately, a blunderbuss exploded, one of the balls from which entered the side of a poor countryman, name Terence M'Donagh, and caused his instant death." If this had occurred now, I suppose, by some reasoning peculiarly Hibernian, this accident would have been laid at Mr. Balfour's door.

As has been shown by the mileage warrant the remuneration paid to the coach proprietors for horsing the mails was, with the exception of two or three cases, always very small. How they contrived to make any profit out of it, with at first only four passengers, is to me a mystery. I can only suppose that the fares charged to the passengers were very high. As the roads improved, and the conveyances were made more comfortable and commodious, three outside passengers were allowed to be carried, and the pace being accelerated, no doubt many of the mails had a pretty good time of it till the roads were sufficiently improved for the fast day coaches to commence running. Up to this time the only competition they experienced was that of the slow and heavy night coaches, and all the "élite" who did not object to pay well for the improved accommodation, travelled by the mails, which were performing their journeys at a good speed considering the then condition of the roads.

In the year 1811, according to a table in the edition of "Patterson's Roads," published in that year, the mail from London to Chester and Holyhead, which started from the General Post-Office at eight o'clock on Monday evening, arrived at Chester at twenty-five minutes past twelve on the morning of the following Wednesday, thus taking about twenty-eight hours and a half to perform a journey of one hundred and eighty miles. The "Bristol" occupied fifteen hours and three-quarters on her journey of one hundred and twenty miles, whilst that to Shrewsbury, which at that time ran by Uxbridge and Oxford, consumed twenty-three hours in accomplishing the distance of one hundred and sixty-two miles, and, as Nimrod remarked in his article on the Road, "Perhaps, an hour after her time by Shrewsbury clock." This shows a speed of nearly eight miles an hour, which, if kept, was very creditable work; but upon this we see that Nimrod casts a doubt, and he adds "The betting were not ten to one that she had not been overturned on the road."

By the year 1825, some considerable acceleration had taken place. The Shrewsbury mail, which had then become the more important Holyhead mail, performed the journey to Shrewsbury in twenty hours and a half, and was again accelerated in the following year, but to how great an extent I have no knowledge. I only know that a few years later the time allowed was reduced to sixteen hours and a quarter, and she was due at Holyhead about the same time as, a few years previously, she had reached Shrewsbury, or twenty-eight hours from London; and thus, owing in a great degree to the admirable efficiency of Mr. Telford's road-making, surpassing by six hours the opinion expressed by him in the year 1830, that the mail ought to go to Holyhead in thirty-four hours. The remuneration paid to the horse contractors was, with very few exceptions, always very small, as the table already introduced shows.

Notwithstanding all the improvements in the mails, however, when the fast day coaches became their rivals, they more and more lost their good customers and then began the complaints about the small amount paid by the post-office. So much, indeed, did this competition tell, that when the Shrewsbury mail became the Holyhead, and changed its route from the Oxford road to that through Coventry, the contractors would accept no less than a shilling a mile, fearing the opposition they would have to meet by those who had lost the mail on the other road. It was, however, largely reduced afterwards, but to what extent I have not ascertained; and again, upon an acceleration in 1826, it was increased to fourpence, with the proviso that if it shared less than four pounds a mile per month during the ensuing year, the price should be raised to fivepence.

The Chester mail also obtained a rise to sixpence at the same time, as it did not earn four pounds a mile; doubtless in consequence of its having ceased to carry the Holyhead traffic.

The dissatisfaction of the contractors, appears to have continued, and, indeed, became more intense as the coaches improved and multiplied, till at last a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to investigate the circumstances, which, however, I should have thought were not very far to seek; but at any rate, it elicited some good, sound, common sense from Mr. Johnson, the superintendent of mail coaches.

He was of opinion that anything under fivepence a mile was too little, and that mail coaches which received less than that were decidedly underpaid. Still the competition was so great that persons were generally found to undertake the contract for less; but he did not desire to bring forward persons to take it at less than threepence a mile, as it would be injurious to them if they excited that sort of opposition. He considered that a dividend of four pounds a mile a month was sufficient to cover loss, but with scarcely sufficient profit. Indeed, fast coaches ought to share five, and I can quite bear him out in this.

He was, evidently, a very sensible, practical man, and knew that innkeepers would be found to horse mails for almost nothing, merely for the sake of the prestige which attached to them, the increased custom they brought to the bar, and old rivalry, which was often exceedingly strong, and he preferred to pay a fair sum to be sure and keep responsible men.

He considered that mails, on account of the limited number of passengers, worked at a disadvantage when opposed by other coaches; and no doubt he was right, because if a coach carrying fifteen or sixteen passengers was nearly empty to-day, it would be remunerated by a full load to-morrow; whereas, the mail with only seven, when full, could not be reimbursed by one good load. It required to be pretty evenly loaded every day to make it pay.

He said a majority of our mail coaches are not earning what is considered the minimum remuneration for a public carriage.

He considered that to run toll free and duty free was sufficient to secure them against competition, but, curiously enough, this never seems to have been tried, for though the roads were compelled to let the mails run without paying toll, the Chancellor of the Exchequer always claimed the mileage duty, which was twopence a mile. There was also a duty of five pounds for the stage-coach licence, or what was termed the plates, which they were obliged to carry. The mails, however, were excused from carrying the plates, as it was said His Majesty's mails ought not to be disfigured; but whether they enjoyed the more substantial benefit of having the five pounds remitted I have not been able to ascertain.

As time went on, and fast coaches increased, Mr. Johnson must have been at his wit's end to know how to get the mail bags carried. Mail carts appear to have been an expensive luxury, as they cost a shilling a mile, and he could generally do better with the coach proprietors.

In some cases there was so much difficulty in filling up stages that it was repeatedly necessary to send orders that if no horses were to be found to take the coach over a certain stage, to forward it by post horses.

The Norwich mail, through Newmarket, received eightpence a mile, of which two hundred pounds seems to have been advanced to help the proprietors out of difficulties, and to induce them to go on at all; but that mail was very strongly opposed by an excellent day coach, the "Norwich Telegraph," from the "Golden Cross," Charing Cross.

So little at this time was the post-office work valued where it interfered with the hours or increased the pace, that a night coach on the same Norwich road as the mail declined to compete, and it was suggested, but not carried out, to put a guard upon a coach, making a contract with him to carry the letters, giving them some advantage for so doing, which would make it worth their while; and a coach at one time was employed to carry the bags between Alton and Gosport, which were brought to the former place by the Poole mail.

It did not, however, meet with Mr. Johnson's approval. He says, "I think that the use of coaches in that way goes directly to destroy the regular mail coach system. I think that if any coach from London to Manchester were to be allowed to carry ten outsides, it never would arrive within an hour of the present mail coach, from the interruption which is occasioned by the number of outside passengers, not to speak of the insecurity of the bags."

No doubt he was quite right, as a rule; but if he lived to witness the "Telegraph" coach perform with regularity that journey of one hundred and eighty-six miles in eighteen hours, he would have confessed that there might be exceptions to the rule.

He says, speaking generally of the system, with a justifiable spice of esprit de corps, "I think we should look to the general result of the mail coach system, and that we should provide the best expedient we can for cases of difficulty. If we employed such coaches we could not prevent the parties from writing Royal Mail Coach upon them, and writing Royal Mail Coach Office upon all their establishments in the towns where they reside; all of which would go very much to destroy the distinction by which the present mail coaches greatly depend, and we should consider that after the mail coach system has supplied all the uses of the post-office, it is still valuable as a national system. It originally set the example of that travelling which is so much admired, not only at home, but even throughout Europe, and I hope continues to set an example now. I am persuaded that the manner in which the stage coaches have been accelerated arose entirely from their desire to rival the mails upon their old plan, and they now try to keep as close to them as they can, though, in all long distances, they are certainly very far behind. Persons of the first distinction travel by the mail coaches. I don't mean amateur whips, but persons who depend upon the regularity, security, and comfort of the mail coach, and being less likely to meet with disagreeable passengers."

He adds, "I am not aware of any coach that goes as fast as the mail for a hundred and fifty miles, not even the 'Wonder,' and if some days as fast, they are able, whenever they think proper, to relax their speed, which the mail, being under contract, cannot do."

The keen competition between the mails and other coaches is well emphasized by a letter written by Mr. Spencer, the coach proprietor at Holyhead, to Mr. Chaplin in London, complaining that as the "Nimrod" had commenced running through to Holyhead, they were obliged to carry passengers at lower fares, and saying that he had by that night's mail booked a lady through to London, inside, for four pounds; and from my own experience, I can quite believe this, as some of the ladies of the Principality are like Mrs. Gilpin, who, though on pleasure bent, had a frugal mind.

When I was driving the "Snowdonian" upon one up journey, upon looking at the "way-bill," as I left Dolgelly, I perceived that there was a lady booked, to be taken up a mile or two out of the town, to go a short distance, the fare for which was three shillings and sixpence "to pay." She took her place in the coach in due course, and having alighted at her destination, I demanded her fare from her, upon which she assured me that she could only pay half-a-crown, as she had no more money with her. I told her that I was responsible for the full fare, and that she really must pay it; and when she saw that I was determined to have no nonsense about it, she asked me if I could give her change for a sovereign, to which I replied, "Yes, or two, if you like;" whereupon, she opened her purse and exposed to my delighted eyes two or three shiners.

But to show how serious was the reduction made by the Holyhead mail, it will be sufficient to say that the fares by the Edinburgh mail, which ran a distance of only one hundred and thirty miles more, were eleven guineas and a half inside, and seven and a half outside: a full way-bill amounting to sixty-eight guineas and a half. Now this, with fees to coachmen, guards, and porters, would make a journey to the northern capital from the southern one cost about fourteen pounds for an inside passenger, and about ten for one travelling outside, and it occupied forty hours.

The distance may now be performed in nine hours and at a cost of two pounds, or less by Parliamentary train.

We have seen the mail bags no heavier than could be carried by a boy riding a pony, but before the railway system commenced they had increased to such an extent that some mail coaches could carry no more, and, in two cases, they required to be subsidised. For some time the "Greyhound," Shrewsbury coach, was paid every Saturday night for two outside places to Birmingham, in consideration of their carrying two mail bags as far as that town on account of the number of newspapers; and when that coach ceased running the Holyhead mail was paid for outside places to enable them to dispense with that number of passengers, and find the extra space required for these bags. The Dover mail also received assistance in the form of an extra coach once a week for the foreign, or what were called the black bags, as they were dressed with tar to render them waterproof.

With this before me I cannot help asking myself whether it was not somewhat of a leap in the dark to reduce the postage at one bound from the existing high rates to one penny. If the railways had not been constructed with the celerity they were, there must have been great difficulty and increased expenses in conveying the mails, as it would have been impossible for the mail coaches to carry them and passengers as well. I suppose, however, we must conclude that Sir Rowland Hill had, with great foresight, and much consideration, assured himself that such would be the case with the railways, and that he might safely trust to their rapid development and co-operation for carrying out his great project. Though the result might not have been equally clear to others as to himself, he was only like the great engineer, George Stephenson, who, when examined before a Committee of the House of Commons, for the sake of humouring the distrust and nervousness of his interrogators, placed the speed at which he expected the trains to travel at ten miles an hour, though, at the same time he quite reckoned upon, at least, double that speed.

The mail coaches working out of London had a gala day every year. On the King's birthday they all paraded, spick and span, with the coaches new or else freshly painted and varnished, the coachmen and guards wearing their new scarlet liveries, picked teams with new harness, and rosettes in their heads: blue and orange ones in old George the Third's day; but the orange, for some cause or other, was changed to red in the succeeding reign. In this form they formed up and paraded through several of the principal thoroughfares at the West End, returning to their respective yards preparatory to the serious business of the night.

It was a very pretty pageant, but there was another scene connected with them, and which, to my mind, was quite, if not more interesting, which could be witnessed every week-day evening in St. Martin's-le-Grand, between the hours of half-past seven and eight. Soon after the former hour all the mail coaches—with the exception of seven or eight, which left London by the western roads, and received their bags at the "White Horse Cellar," or "Gloucester Coffee-house," to which places they were taken in mail carts—began to arrive at the General Post-Office to receive their bags. They turned into the yard, through the gateway nearest to Cheapside, and took up their places behind the building in a space which has been very much encroached upon since by buildings, and, as eight o'clock struck, they were to be seen emerging through the lower gateway, and turning off on their respective routes, spreading out like a sky rocket as they advanced into the country.

During the long days in summer they turned out nearly as smart as upon the Royal birthday, but on a dark, stormy blustering evening in December or January, when snow or rain were falling steadily, there was an appearance of business, and very serious business about them. The scarlet coats were obscured from view by the somewhat elaborate upper coats which have been elsewhere described; and there was a feeling of serious reality about the whole thing, not unlike that which comes over one upon seeing a ship start on a long voyage, or a regiment embarking for foreign service. One felt that they would probably meet with more or less difficulty, or, at any rate, that there was an arduous task before them. The horses would be changed, the coachmen would be changed, the guards would be changed, probably there would be a considerable change in the passengers, but the wheels roll on for ever, or, at any rate, till they arrive at their journey's end, which, in some cases, would extend not only through that night, but continue till darkness again returned, when the same work went on through another night, and in two or three instances was not concluded till the sun was again high in the heavens; and so admirably was the service performed that the betting was long odds in favour of each coach reaching its destination at the correct time.