This Machine may be applied to any kind of Chaise or Carriage, and may be put on and off at pleasure, without any injury to either.
It will accurately register the number of Miles the Vehicle travels over, to any distance. It is fixed so as to be of no possible detriment to the Carriage, and can be ornamented as elegantly as fancy may desire. A Time-piece may be attached to it, by which may be seen the Distance travelled per Hour.
I can think of only One way of infallibly preventing all disputes about Distance, between the Riders in and the Drivers of Hackney Coaches.
To Regulate all the fares by Time, according to the present charge for Time, 2s. for the first hour, and 3s. for every hour after: as the Pace in Travelling seldom exceeds five Miles in an Hour, about double the sum is charged while the Coach is in motion that is charged while it is in waiting. Let after the rate of Five or Six Shillings per hour be paid while the Wheels are going round;—this could be much easier reckoned than the Distance they have gone over, and would put an end to all Disputes on the subject.
To determine exactly between an extremely long Twelve, and an extremely short Eighteen-penny fare, is not a very easy task to the most Experienced: it is, in fact, determining whether you have proceeded 1760 or 1761 Yards!
A friend of mine informs me, that he puzzled himself and the Hackney Coachman too on one occasion, by pulling him up so that the Horses had exceeded the Shilling fare, and the Coach had not. This deserves to be referred to a full bench of Justices. They might, at the same time, decide how it would be, if the Coach had been stopped, so that the two fore Wheels were in the above predicament of the Horses, and the other two in that of the Coach. Perhaps then it would make the difference of 6d. on which side the passengers sat.
Query. Can persons who can afford to ride in a Hackney Coach lay out Sixpence more to their own advantage than in spending it to prevent their being put out of Temper?—If they are going out to Dinner, any disagreeable irritation of the Animal Spirits will destroy their Appetite;—if they are returning Home, it will as inevitably invite an Indigestion. Surely no man who is worth a Shilling, would encounter either of these tremendous evils for the sake of Sixpence! unless the Gentleman (to use the nomenclature of the Hero of a certain popular Drama) be a regular Jarvy-Teaser.
But who grudges these Poor Fellows their full Fare? except a few Washerwomen, Milliners, and Tailors, and Coffin-makers, and Grave-makers, who may like them as little as Link Boys love the Moon, who, for their outrageous antipathy to
“The silver Queen of Night,”
are denominated in Mr. Grose’s Classical Dictionary, “Moon-Cursers.”