Here we see that coach drawn up in front of a wayside hostelry,—the “Bull’s Head”—at some unnamed spot. Let us not criticise the drawing of it too narrowly, for the painting whence this illustration was engraved was the work of the coachman, Alfred Elliot. He was coachman first, and artist afterwards.
THE “BIRMINGHAM EXPRESS” LEAVING THE “HEN AND CHICKENS.” From a contemporary painting.
Another result of competition was the gorgeous livery a coach on a hotly contested route would assume, and the number of places it would pretend to serve. In the illustration of the “Express” London and Birmingham coach—represented in the act of leaving the “Hen and Chickens,” New Street, Birmingham, and reproduced from a curious contemporary painting executed on sheet tin—an extraordinary number of place-names are seen; some those of towns this coach could not possibly have served. The explanation is that the “Express” made connections with other routes and booked passengers for them, whom they set down at ascertained points to wait for the connecting coach. This in itself, an early attempt at the through booking and junction system obtaining on railways, is evidence of the progress made towards exact time-keeping in this era.
De Quincey, as a mail-passenger, has a scornful passage reflecting upon the gold and colour that adorned these stage-coaches, which, being furiously competitive, could not afford to be quiet and plain, like the mails. “A tawdry thing from Birmingham,” was his verdict upon the “Tally-Ho” or “Highflyer,” that overtook the Holyhead Mail between Shrewsbury and Oswestry. “All flaunting with green and gold,” it came up alongside. “What a contrast with our royal simplicity of form and colour is this plebeian wretch, with as much writing and painting on its sprawling flanks as would have puzzled a decipherer from the tombs of Luxor!” Precisely the same things might be said of omnibuses in our own days.
CHAPTER VIII
COACH LEGISLATION
“The law,” said Mr. Bumble, “is a hass!” and scarcely ever has it appeared more asinine than in its dealings with the roads and road-traffic. Legislative traffic restrictions were very early introduced, originally on behalf of the highways; and not until the coaching age was well advanced did it appear necessary to intervene with enactments protecting the passengers as well as the road surface. There was perhaps no necessity to legislate against reckless driving in the early days of coaching; for, with the singularly bad state of the roads, the clumsy build of the original vehicles, and the exhaustion of the teams that drew them great distances without a change, it would have passed the wit of man to be a charioteer with the dashing methods attributed to Jehu, that Biblical hero, the son of Nimshi, who, we are told, “drove furiously.”
The first restrictions to be put in force were those levelled against the heavy road-traffic of the time of James I. By them, four-wheeled carts and waggons were, in 1622, absolutely prohibited, and loads above 20 cwt. forbidden: “No carrier or other person whatsoever shall travel with any wain, cart, or carriage with more than two wheels, nor above the weight of twenty hundred, nor shall draw any wain, cart, or carriage with more than five horses at once.” This was confirmed in 1629. It seems an arbitrary and merely freakish act, thus to interfere with the traffic of the roads; but we must remember what those roads were like, and consider that our ancestors were not irrational puppets, but living, breathing, and reasoning men, whose doings, when considered in relation with the times, the limitations that obscured their view, and the disabilities that surrounded them, were eminently logical. It is not easy to be wiser than one’s generation, and those who are have generally been accounted geniuses by later ages and madmen by their contemporaries. Even when ideas are of the enlightened kind, they are not readily to be applied when greatly in advance of their era; for stubborn facts, difficult to remove or improve away, commonly delay the practical application of the most brilliant theories. If a seventeenth-century MacAdam had arisen to preach the gospel of good roads, instead of repressive regulations for bad ones, he would still have had to overcome the difficulty of finding road-metal in districts far removed from stone; and how he would or could have surmounted that impediment when all roads were bad and the transport of materials from a distance expensive and tedious, we will leave the reader to determine.
To look upon our forbears, therefore, as though they were strange creatures whose movements were not governed by as much common sense as our own would be absurd.