The coaches were by now hung much higher, and the original driver’s seat had given place to a lofty box, from which the coachman had a greater command over his horses.
The general appearance of stage-coaches at this time has been eloquently described by Sir Walter Scott. They were covered with dull black leather, thickly studded with broad-headed nails, tracing out the panels. The heavy window-frames were painted red, and the windows themselves provided with green stuff or leather curtains which could be drawn at will. On the panels of the body were displayed in large characters the names of the places whence the coach started and whither it went. The coachman and guard (when there was a guard at all) sat in front upon a high narrow boot, often garnished with a spreading hammer-cloth with a deep fringe. The roof rose in a high curve. The wheels were large, massive, ill formed, and generally painted red. In shape the body varied. Sometimes it resembled a distiller’s vat somewhat flattened, and hung equally balanced between the immense back and front springs; in other cases it took the form of a violoncello case, which was, past all comparison, the most fashionable form; again, it hung in a more genteel posture, inclining on the back springs, in that case giving those who sat within the appearance of a stiff Guy Fawkes. The foremost horse was still ridden by a postilion, a longlegged elf dressed in a long green and gold riding-coat and wearing a cocked hat; and the traces were so long that it was with no little difficulty the poor animals dragged their unwieldy burden along. It groaned, creaked, and lumbered at every fresh tug they gave it, as a ship, beating up through a heavy sea, strains all her timbers.
In 1774 the proprietors of the “Original London and Salop Machine, in the modern taste, on steel springs,” announced that, among other improvements, their coach had “bows on the top.” Some consideration of this portentous improvement inclines us to the belief that these “bows” must have been guard-irons on the roof for passengers to hold on by, and to prevent them being thrown off. A little further consideration will perhaps bring us to the conclusion that those “bows” would not even then have been placed there had not some serious accident already happened. Such protection was not uncommon, as may be gathered from an account of a coach journey written by Charles H. Moritz, a worthy German pastor who visited England in 1782. His narrative shows that those who were obliged to ride cheaply had a choice of the basket and the roof, and that although the roof then had no seats, it was provided with little handles, to hold on by. But they were of little use, and when the coach rolled like a ship upon a stormy sea the chances of being flung overboard were still as many as ever. But he, like others, having tried both basket and roof, preferred the latter, and returned to it, groaning with the shocks received in the “rumble-tumble.”
Rowlandson’s picture of a stage-coach in 1780 shows the same preference. Only one passenger is seen in the wickerwork appendage, while the roof, innocent of safeguards or seats, is covered with sprawling passengers who are content to take their chance of an involuntary flight, so that they escape the certain inconveniences of the “conveniency.”
“I observe,” says Moritz, “that they have here a curious way of riding, not in, but upon, a stage-coach. Persons to whom it is not convenient to pay a full price, instead of the inside, sit on the top of the coach, without any seats or even a rail. By what means passengers thus fasten themselves securely on the roof of these vehicles I know not; but you constantly see numbers seated there, apparently at their ease and in perfect safety. This they call riding on the outside, for which they pay only half as much as those who are within.
“Being obliged to bestir myself to get back to London, as the time drew near when the Hamburg captain with whom I intended to return had fixed his departure, I determined to take a place as far as Northampton on the outside. But this ride from Leicester to Northampton I shall remember as long as I live.
“The coach drove from the yard through a part of the house. The inside passengers got in from the yard, but we on the outside were obliged to clamber up in the street, because we should have had no room for our heads to pass under the gateway. My companions on the top of the coach were a farmer, a young man very decently dressed, and a blackamoor. The getting up alone was at the risk of one’s life, and when I was up I was obliged to sit just at the corner of the coach, with nothing to hold on by but a sort of little handle fastened on the side. I sat nearest the wheel, and the moment that we set off I fancied I saw certain death before me. All I could do was to take still tighter hold of the handle, and to be strictly careful to preserve my balance. The machine rolled along with prodigious rapidity over the stones through the town of Leicester, and every moment we seemed to fly into the air, so much so that it appeared to me a complete miracle that we stuck to the coach at all. But we were completely on the wing as often as we passed through a village or went down a hill.
“This continual fear of death at last became insupportable to me, and therefore, no sooner were we crawling up a rather steep hill, and consequently proceeding slower than usual, than I carefully crept from the top of the coach, and was lucky enough to get myself snugly ensconced in the basket behind. ‘O sir, you will be shaken to death!’ said the blackamoor; but I heeded him not, trusting that he was exaggerating the unpleasantness of my new situation. And, truly, as long as we went on slowly up the hill, it was easy and pleasant enough; and I was just on the point of falling asleep, having had no rest the night before, when on a sudden the coach proceeded at a rapid rate downhill. Then all the boxes, iron-nailed and copper-fastened, began, as it were, to dance around me; everything in the basket appeared to be alive, and every moment I received such violent blows that I thought my last hour had come. The blackamoor had been right, I now saw clearly; but repentance was useless, and I was obliged to suffer horrible torture for nearly an hour, which seemed to me an eternity. At last we came to another hill, when, quite shaken to pieces, bleeding, and sore, I ruefully crept back to the top of the coach to my former seat. ‘Ah, did I not tell you that you would be shaken to death?’ inquired the black man, when I was creeping along on my stomach. But I gave him no reply. Indeed, I was ashamed; and I now write this as a warning to all strangers who are inclined to ride in English stage-coaches and take an outside seat, or, worse still, horror of horrors, a seat in the basket.
“From Harborough to Northampton I had a most dreadful journey. It rained incessantly, and as before we had been covered with dust, so now we were soaked with rain. My neighbour, the young man who sat next me in the middle, every now and then fell asleep; and when in this state he perpetually bolted and rolled against me with the whole weight of his body, more than once nearly pushing me from my seat, to which I clung with the last strength of despair. My forces were nearly giving way, when at last, happily, we reached Northampton, on the evening of July 14th, 1782, an ever-memorable day to me.
“On the next morning I took an inside place for London. We started early. The journey from Northampton to the metropolis, however, I can scarcely call a ride, for it was a perpetual motion, or endless jolt from one place to another, in a close wooden box, over what appeared to be a heap of unhewn stones and trunks of trees scattered by a hurricane. To make my happiness complete, I had three travelling companions, all farmers, who slept so soundly that even the hearty knocks with which they hammered their heads against each other and against mine did not awake them. Their faces, bloated and discoloured by ale and brandy and the knocks aforesaid, looked, as they lay before me, like so many lumps of dead flesh. I looked, and certainly felt, like a crazy fool when we arrived at London in the afternoon.”