Coach office

“ It is then that, with worldly wisdom, the first comer hastens to secure the best berth in the coach for himself, and to make the most convenient arrangement for his baggage before the arrival of his competitors. Our youth, who was gifted with little prudence, of any sort, and who was, moreover, by the absence of the coach, deprived of the power of availing himself of his priority of choice, amused himself, instead, by speculating upon the occupation and character of the personage who was now come to the coach office. ”

“ Green that so many men went up by the coach, that unless he made an early application, he would altogether fail in obtaining places; so a letter had been dispatched to "the Swan" coach-office at Birmingham, from which place the coach started, and two outside seats had been put at Mr. Green's disposal. ”

“ You arrive at the office, and look wistfully up the yard for the Birmingham High-flier, which, for aught you can see, may have flown away altogether, for preparations appear to be on foot for the departure of any vehicle in the shape of a coach. You wander into the booking-office, which with the gas-lights and blazing fire, looks quite comfortable by contrast—that is to say, if any place can look comfortable at half-past five on a winter’s morning. ”

“ Of all men in the world your coach cad has the quickest eye for detecting a stranger; and who but Sam Spring, the box-book keeper of Drury Lane, whose eternal bow has grown proverbial, could ask an impudent question with more politeness than Mr. Court, the chargé de affaires in the High Street, for the conflicting interests of half a hundred coach proprietors 1 "Do you travel to-day, sir?—Very happy to send for your luggage—Go by the early coach, sir?—Our porter [248] shall call you up, only let me put you down at our office." ”

“ Maitland.
124Hackney Coach Office, in Surry street in the Strand, was erected according to an act of parliament passed in the year 1696, for licensing hackney coaches and chairs, and to put them under the government of five Commissioners, who have a salary of 150l. a year each. The number of coaches is limited to eight hundred; out of which two hundred are to ply every Sunday in their turn, on the forfeiture of 5l. for every coachman who plies out of his turn. ”

“ A STATE COACH OF THE PERIOD (17TH CENTURY) WHEN KING CHARLES I. SOJOURNED AT SMALL STREET, BRISTOL, ON THE SITE OF THE PRESENT POST OFFICE.
There were only six stage-coaches known in 1662. A journey that could not be performed on horseback was rarely undertaken then by those who could not afford their own steeds. ”

“ On retiring from the Service of the Post Office after fifty-five years spent in harness, it has been suggested to me that some account of my experience of Post Office work in the days before the railways were established might be of interest to many who have no knowledge of “the good old coaching days,” except what they have acquired by hearsay or from books. I will, p. 18therefore, set down a few of the incidents that stand out most clearly in my memory. They will show, at any rate, that life on a Mail Coach fifty years ago was not all “beer and skittles,” though enjoyable enough at times. ”

“ James’ Palace and back to the General Post Office, then in Lombard Street:—
“Each coach was new or turned out to look like new and was painted red with the Royal Arms on the door panel, and on the smaller panel above the name of the town to which the coach went; on the boot the number of the mail, and on each upper quarter one of the stars of the four Orders of the Knighthood of the United Kingdom, the Garter, the Bath, the Thistle and St. Patrick. The coaches were built just big enough to contain four inside and three or four outside, and coachman and guard. ”

“ The crowd that spread itself over this immense expanse was as rich representation of human life off its guard as one need see. One’s first fate after arriving, if one is perched upon a coach, is to see the coach guided, by means best known to the coachman himself, through the tremendous press of vehicles and pedestrians, introduced into a precinct roped off and guarded from intrusion save under payment of a fee, and then drawn up alongside of the course, as nearly as possible opposite the grand stand and the winning post. ”

“ And so, instead of the handsome stylish coach, that a gentleman might ride on without shame, with its dashing four-in-hand, we have got this dirty, shabby, yellow thing, with its unicorn team of skin and bone, a driver that old Jack Simons, the coachman, would not have had for a stable-helper, and an urchin for guard, who would be a disgrace to a dung-cart! ”

“ Oftentimes I feared that the coach would go over altogether into the ditch, when I was thankful that there was not any one outside except the coachman and guard, who are in a manner born to it, to break their necks. ”

“ The coachman flanks his leaders, who break into a gallop; the guard sounds his triumphant bugle; the coach bounds over the noble bridge that spans a stream covered with craft; public buildings, guildhalls, and county gaols rise on each side. ”

“ Coaching is not an 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. job. The assistant who is “willing” to work a little extra is not the one I want on my staff. The assistant who “wants” to do what is necessary in order to get the team ready to play, regardless of the time element involved, is the man whom I want to assist me.
A head coach cannot expect his assistants to be dedicated to their work, unless he leads by example. The head coach must work harder, longer, and be more dedicated to his work than any of his assistants, if he expects to have a good, hard-working staff and winners. ”

“ The appointments of an English coach are no less elegant than its form. A portly looking coachman seated on a very high coach-box, well dressed, wearing white gloves, a nosegay in his button-hole, and his chin enveloped in an enormous cravat, drives four horses perfectly matched and harnessed, and as carefully groomed as when they excited admiration in the carriages of Grosvenor and Berkeley Squares. ”

“ But in the golden age of coaching, when well-kept teams working sometimes only six- or eight-mile stages were usual, that coach-proprietor who, from motives of economy or for any other reason, omitted to provide a guard, should have been made criminally responsible for any accidents caused by that omission. ”

“ The coach was one of the vehicles of the new fashion—the fashion of public conveyances driven, for the entertainment of themselves and of the public, by gentlemen of leisure. On the Derby Day all the coaches that start from the classic headquarters—the “White Horse” in Piccadilly—and stretch away from London toward a dozen different and well-selected goals, had been dedicated to the Epsom road. The body of the vehicle is empty, as no one thinks of occupying any but one of the thirteen places on the top. ”

“ How glad we were when the coachman, as he climbed up into his lofty seat, and gathered up the reins in his capacious hand, gave the signal, ‘Let ’em go!’ How beautiful it was to us lads to see the coach bound off like a thing of life, while the guard blew a farewell flourish on his horn, and the horses settled down steadily to their work after a playful flourish or two! ”

“ The thin young woman is got upon the roof by dint of a great deal of pulling and pushing, and helping and trouble; and she repays it by expressing her solemn conviction that she will never be able to get down again.
“‘All right!’ sings out the guard at last,332 jumping up as the coach starts, and blowing his horn directly afterwards, in proof of the soundness of his wind. ‘Let ’em go, Harry; give ’em their heads!’ cries the coachman—and off we start as briskly as if the morning were ‘all right,’ as well as the coach.” ”

“ In the hall of the Coachmakers’ Company, in Noble Street, Cheapside, is a picture of Hyde Park Corner in 1796, painted by Dagaty, in which is an old stage coach; the hinder part has a boot and guard’s seat attached to the body as in modern stage coaches, but the box is detached from the body and on the beds, as described above; the panels of the body are very deep, and on the upper quarters are painted two large stars, from which we may conjecture that it is a mail coach. ”

“ It is important that you explain to them just what you are trying to accomplish, how long it will take, and why you are doing it in your particular manner. The administrators and the administration must understand the value the program has for each boy who participates, and the ways the program can benefit the entire school system. Therefore, before a coach accepts a particular position he should give considerable thought to the administration’s philosophy, attitude or point-of-view toward the football program. ”

“ Do you know him?”
“Talks like a Hact o’ Parlymint,” says the coachman to his friend.
“And a very good reason, too,” says a man with knowledge: “he is a Justice of the Peace and Chairman of the Bench of Magistrates at94 Stockton, which holds a higher jurisdiction than your bench, coachman. I think you’ve had a very narrow escape of parting with £10 and costs.”
The guard has a few parcels to take out of the boot at the “King’s Head,” and a few new ones to put in, and then we’re off for Rushyford Bridge, where the coach takes tea, and where we leave the amateur coachee at the “Wheatsheaf.” ”

“ Neither has he the agility of the artist on the Comet, for he is nearly double his size; but he is a strong powerful man, and might be called a pattern card of the heavy coachman of the present day—in other words, of a man who drives a coach which carries sixteen passengers instead of fourteen, and is rated at eight miles an hour instead of ten. “What room in the Regulator?” says our friend to the waiter, as he comes to announce its arrival. “Full inside, sir, and in front; but you'll have the gammon board all to yourself, and your luggage is in the hind boot.” ”

“ These stage-coaches are admirably managed: relays of horses are ready at every post: as soon as the coach drives up they are brought out, and we are scarcely detained ten minutes. The coachman seems to know every body along the 363road; he drops a parcel at one door, nods to a woman at another, delivers a message at a third, and stops at a fourth to receive a glass of spirits or a cup of ale, which has been filled for him as soon as the sound of his wheels was beard. ”

“ He wonders at your fidgetiness,—"where could we be better than we are, thus silting, thus consulting?"—"prefers, for his part, a state of rest to locomotion,"—with an eye all the while upon the coachman—till at length, waxing out of all patience, at your want of it, he breaks out into a pathetic remonstrance at the fellow for detaining us so long over the time which he had professed, and declares peremptorily, that "the gentleman in the coach is determined to get out, if he does not drive on that instant." ”

“ Grand churches whose spires soar away, away far into the sky, astonish our newly-awakened vision as the coachman carefully guides the coach through the narrow and crooked streets, in which the shadows from cornices and roof-tops lie so black and sharp that none but he who has driven here before could surely bring this coach safely through. Once or twice we have quailed as he has driven straight at some solid wall, and have breathed again when it has proved to be only some oblique monstrous silhouetted image cast athwart the81 way. ”

“ On the great mail routes names, often fantastic, are given to the different coaches; such, for instance, as the "Caillard," the "Ducler" (the coach between Nemours and Paris) , the "Grand Bureau." Every new enterprise is called the "Competition." In the days of the Lecompte company their coaches were called the "Countess."—"'Caillard' could not overtake the 'Countess'; but 'Grand Bureau' caught up with her finely," you will hear the men say. ”

“ Away goes the coach, and the mother holds her lovely lad aloft in her arms, and in silent wonder, listens to the fading horn, and watches the coach grow smaller and smaller, until it disappears entirely from the sight. ”

“ The waterman darts from the pump, seizes the horses by their respective bridles, and drags them, and the coach too, round to the house, shouting all the time for the coachman at the very top, or rather very bottom of his voice, for it is a deep bass growl. A response is heard from the tap-room; the coachman, in his wooden-soled shoes, makes the street echo again as he runs across it; and then there is such a struggling, and backing, and grating of the kennel, to get the coach-door opposite the house-door, that the children are in perfect ecstasies of delight. ”

“ A glorious afternoon in spring, a perfect playground, complete equipment in readiness, two score of eager youth in need of the health and recreation that come from sport pursued in the fine spirit of sport. Could anything keep them from playing? Nothing but the spirit of modern American intercollegiate athletics and the embodiment of that spirit, the paid coach, who knows that there is but one crime that he can commit—that of losing a contest. ”

“ I do not think it advisable for a head coach to do group work with one of his assistants. If an assistant is directing a group and the head man comes over to help out, he takes the lead away from the assistant. As a result the assistant coach is likely to lose his initiative—the very trait you want him to develop. ”

“ It is often almost impossible to find a trustworthy coach. There is nearly always some one in residence who is considered capable of looking after the college Eight, but the ignorance of college coaches is often only too manifest from the arrant nonsense they may be heard shouting on the bank. There is only one remedy I can suggest. Let the college captain secure some member of the University Crew, or any one else who knows what he is talking about, to take the crew for a couple of days, and make the College coach accompany him. ”