Coaches to be let for hire were first established at London in 1625. At that time there were only twenty, which did not stand in the streets, but at the principal inns. Ten years after, however, they were become so numerous, that king Charles I. found it necessary to issue an order for limiting their number. In the year 1637 there were in London and Westminster fifty hackney coaches, for each of which no more than twelve horses were to be kept. In the year 1652 their number had increased to two hundred; in 1654 there were three hundred, for which six hundred horses were employed; in 1694 they were limited to seven hundred, and in 1715 to eight hundred194.
Hackney coaches were first established in Edinburgh in 1673. Their number was twenty; but as the situation of the city was unfavourable for carriages, it fell in 1752 to fourteen, and in 1778 to nine, and the number of sedans increased.
Fiacres were introduced at Warsaw, for the first time, in 1778. In Copenhagen there are a hundred hackney coaches195.
In Madrid there are from four to five thousand gentlemen’s carriages196; in Vienna three thousand, and two hundred hackney coaches.
At Amsterdam coaches with wheels were in the year 1663 forbidden, in order to save the expensive pavement of the streets; for coaches there, even in summer, are placed upon sledges, as those at Petersburgh are in winter. The tax upon carriages in Holland has from time to time been raised, yet the number has increased; and some years ago the coach horses in the Seven United Provinces amounted to twenty-five thousand.
When Prince Repnin made his entrance into Constantinople in 1775, he had with him eighty coaches, and two hundred livery servants.
[Since the former edition of this work, published in 1814, public conveyances have undergone considerable changes. Stage-coaches, which in this country had arrived at such a degree of perfection, and which, till within a few years, passed through and connected almost every small town in the United Kingdom, have now nearly disappeared in consequence of the introduction of railroads. It is also rare in London to meet with a solitary hackney coach, this class of vehicles being almost entirely superseded by the lighter one-horsed cabriolets which were first introduced as public conveyances in the year 1823. The number of hackney coaches and cabriolets now plying for hire in the streets of London amounts to 2650, of which probably not more than 250 are two-horsed coaches.
That very useful form of public conveyance, the omnibus, which is at present met with in nearly every large town in Europe, originated in Paris in 1827. In the latter part of 1831 and the beginning of 1832, omnibuses began to ply in the streets of London. Those running from Paddington to the Bank were the earliest. Carriages, however, of a similar form were used in England as Long Stages more than forty years ago, but were discontinued as they were not found profitable. They were in most request at holiday time, by schoolmasters in the neighbourhood of London; and some even of the present generation will remember their joyous pranks on journeying home in these capacious machines.
There are now about 900 omnibuses running in London and its immediate vicinity. The line from Paddington to the Bank is served by two companies, the London Conveyance Company, and the Paddington Association, which have mutually agreed to run forty omnibuses each. An idea of the utility of these conveyances may be formed from the fact that the receipts of each of the eighty carriages on the above line averages 1000l. per annum, in sixpences.
Omnibuses began to run in Amsterdam in 1839.]
FOOTNOTES
150 See Leges XII. tab. illustratæ a J. N. Funccio, p. 72. Gellius, xx. 1.
151 Scheffer de Re Vehiculari, Spanhem. de Præstant. Numismatum. Amst. 1671, 4to, p. 613. Propertius, iv. 8. 23, mentions serica carpenta.
152 In my opinion the height here alluded to is to be understood as that of the body, rather than that of the wheels, as some think.
153 Codex Theodos. lib. xiv. tit. 12. and Cod. Justin. lib. xi. tit. 19.
154 Lersner, Chronica der Stadt Frankfurt, i. p. 23.
155 Sacrarum Cæremoniarum Romanæ Ecclesiæ Libri tres, auctore J. Catalano. Romæ, 1750, 2 vols. fol. i. p. 131.
156 See Cæremoniæ Episcoporum, lib. i. c. 11.
157 Ludewig’s Erläuter. der Güldenen Bulle. Franc. 1719, vol. i. p. 569.
158 Ludolf, Electa Juris Publici, v. p. 417.
159 Ludolf, l. c.
160 Sattler, Historische Beschreibung des Herzogthums Würtemberg.
161 Suite des Mémoires pour servir à l’Hist. de Brandenburg, p. 63, where the royal author adds, “The common use of carriages is not older than the time of John Sigismund.”
162 Annal. Ferdin. V. p. 2199; and vii. p. 375.
163 In Suite des Mém. pour serv. à l’Hist. de Brandenburg, p. 63, it is remarked that they were coarse coaches, composed of four boards put together in a clumsy manner.
164 Rink, Leben K. Leopold, p. 607.
165 Lünig’s Theatr. Cer. i. p. 289.
166 Ludolf, v. p. 416. Von Moser’s Hofrecht, ii. p. 337.
167 Lunig. Corp. Jur. Feud. Germ. ii. p. 1447.
168 An attempt was made also to prevent the use of coaches by a law in Hungary in 1523.
169 Histoire des Antiquités de Paris, par Sauval, i. p. 187.