Road Scrapings: Coaches and Coaching

by M. E. Haworth

From the 1st May to the 1st September the pavement opposite to the coach-office was crowded by all the “hossy” gentlemen of the period. Guards and professionals might be seen busy with the coach-ladders, arranging their passengers, especially attentive to those attired in muslin, who seemed to require as much coupling and pairing as pigeons in a dovecot. Knots of gentlemen discussed the merits of this or that wheeler or leader, till, reminded by the White Horse clock that time was up, they took a cursory glance at their way-bills, and, mounting their boxes, stole away to the accompaniment of “a yard of tin.”

A well-loaded coach with a level team properly handled, is an object which inspires even the passing crowd with a thrill of pleasurable approbation, if not a tiny atom of envy. Whyte Melville contended that a lady could never look so well as in a riding-habit and properly mounted. Other authorities incline to the fact that the exhilarating effect produced by riding upon a drag, coupled with the opportunity of social conversation and repartee, enhances, if possible, the charms of female attractiveness. Be this as it may, when the end of a journey is reached, the universal regret of the lady passengers is, not that the coachman has driven too quickly, but that the journey is not twice as long as it is. Interesting as the animated scene in Piccadilly during the summer months may be to those who have a taste for the road, there is another treat in store for the coaching man, afforded by a meet of the drags at the Magazine during the London season on special days, of which notice is given. We do not stop to inquire if the coach was built in Oxford Street, Park Street, Piccadilly, or Long Acre; whether the harness was made by Merry or Gibson; whether the team had cost a thousand guineas or two hundred pounds, but we say that the display of the whole stands unequalled and unrivalled by the rest of the world. This unbounded admiration and approval do not at all deteriorate from the merits of the well-appointed four-horse coaches leaving Piccadilly every morning (Sundays excepted), as there is as much difference between a stage-coach and a four-in-hand as there is between a mirror and a mopstick.

Horses for a road-coach should have sufficient breeding to insure that courage and endurance which enable them to travel with ease to themselves at the pace required, and if they are all of one class, or, as old Jack Peer used to say, “all of a mind,” the work is reduced to a minimum. Whereas, horses for the parade at the Magazine must stand sixteen hands; and, when bitted and beared up, should not see the ground they stand upon. They must have action enough to kill them in a twelve-mile stage with a coach, even without a Shooter’s Hill in it.

I do not say this in any spirit of disparagement of the magnificent animals provided by the London dealers at the prices which such animals ought to command.

I may here remind my patient reader that unless the greatest care and vigilance is exercised in driving these Magazine teams, it is three to one in favour of one horse, one showy impetuous favourite, doing all the work, whilst the other three are running behind their collars, because they dare not face their bits. It’s a caution to a young coachman, and spoils all the pleasure of the drive. “He’s a good match in size, colour, and action, but he pulls me off the box; I’ve tried a tight curb and nose-band, a high port, a gag, all in vain! If I keep him and he must pull, let him pull the coach instead of my fingers; run a side-rein through his own harness-terret to his partner’s tug.”

No amount of driving power or resin will prevent one “borer” from pulling the reins through your fingers. I hereby utterly condemn the use of anything of the sort. If your reins are new, they can be educated in the harness-room; but the rendering them sticky with composition entirely prevents the driver from exercising the “give and take” with the mouths of his team which is the key to good coachmanship. Let the back of the left hand be turned well down, the fingers erect; let the whip-hand act occasionally as a pedal does to a pianoforte, and, rely upon it, you are better without resin.

Whyte Melville, in his interesting work, “Riding Recollections,” recites an anecdote, which I may be forgiven for quoting, as it combines both theory and instruction.

“A celebrated Mr. Maxse, celebrated some fifteen years ago for a fineness of hand that enabled him to cross Leicestershire with fewer falls than any other sportsman of fifteen stone who rode equally straight, used to display much comical impatience with the insensibility of his servants to this useful quality. He was once seen explaining to his coachman, with a silk handkerchief passed round a post. ‘Pull at it,’ says the master. ‘Does it pull at you?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ answered the servant, grinning. ‘Slack it off then. Does it pull at you now?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Well then, you double-distilled fool, can’t you see that your horses are like that post? If you don’t pull at them, they won’t pull at you.’”