COACHING.   9

glance, an average of ten miles an hour will not seem a very fast rate ; but when we appreciate that the time occupied in changing horses, ih stopping for meals, etc., is included in the schedule--which means that the coaches must have maintained a running speed of practically fourteen miles an hour, and that over roads which, though good, were far inferior to the English roads of to-day, through storm and sunshine, by day and night, with nothing to steady the coach on a downward incline but the wheelers and a skid-we are convinced that those coachmen were by right the past masters from whom the disciples of coaching must acquire a great portion of their knowledge.

When the days of public coaches were at an end, and most of the famous professional whips were forced to give up the bench," or to assume a more modest one than that of the road coach, the amateurs took up the ball of coaching enthusiasm and kept it rolling ; and it is in a great measure through them that we are enabled to-day to be almost in touch with many of the famous old traditions of the road.

Some portion of their knowledge and experience has been transmitted by means of the pen, but in a very great measure the niceties of the art have been passed down through the medium of the real enthusiast.