How many pretty Bonnets and smart Dresses would have been spoiled the first day of wearing, but for a Shilling Fare?—How many Colds caught?—How many Lives lost?—but for these convenient Rests to Weariness and Shelters from Rain; a shower of which sometimes does as much mischief to Man’s person as it does good to his Potatoes, often produces the most dangerous Diseases, and even Death itself!
In a note in the Prolegomena of Malone’s supplement to Johnson and Steevens’s Shakespeare, we have the following account of
THE ORIGIN OF HACKNEY COACHES.
“I cannot (says Mr. Garrard) omit to mention any new thing that comes up amongst us, though never so trivial. Here is one Captain Bailey, he hath been a Sea Captain, but now lives on the land, about this city, where he tries experiments. He hath erected, according to his ability, some four Hackney Coaches, put his men in livery, and appointed them to stand at the Maypole in the Strand; gives them instructions at what rates to carry men into the several parts of the Town, where all day they may be had. Other Hackneymen seeing this, flocked to the same place, and performed their journey at the same rate, so that sometimes there are twenty of them together, which disperse up and down, that they and others are to be had every where, as watermen are to be had by the water-side. Every body is much pleased with it. For whereas, before, coaches could not be had but at great rates; now a man may have one much cheaper.”
This Letter is dated April 1, 1634.—See Gents. Mag. for 1780, p. 375.
The Rules given in the preceding pages will protect the Rider from extortion on the part of the Driver, beyond Sixpence; and for that, is it worth contending? However the furious Economist, and Penny wise and Pound foolish Boys may differ from us, we say again, it is too great a trifle for the Wise to be nice about. A man who has Twelve-pennyworth of Sense will have no Sixpenny Sorrows.
“There is a Time for all Things.”
Ecclesiastes, chap. iii. verse 1.
“There is a Time to Save, in order to Spend”—and so is there also “a Time to Spend, in order to Save.”
The Price of Labour is usually in proportion to the degree of Skill or Strength requisite to perform any operation, or to the Disagreeableness of the work, or to the Detriment it occasions to Health:—few situations are more disagreeable, or more destructive to Health, than the exposure at all Hours to extreme Heat in Summer, and intense Cold in Winter, and continual Wet in the Rainy Season:—neither are