Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men

It is a fine autumnal morning in the year 1837. I am sitting on the box seat of a stage coach, in the yard of the Bull and Mouth, St. Martin's le Grand, in the City of London. The splendid gray horses seem anxious to be off, but their heads are held by careful grooms. The metal fittings of the harness glitter in the early sunlight. Jew pedlar boys offer me razors and penknives at prices unheard of in the shops. Porters bring carpet bags and strange looking packages of all sizes, and, to my great inconvenience, keep lifting up the foot board, to deposit them in the front boot. A solemn looking man, whose nose is preternaturally red, holds carefully a silver mounted whip. Passengers arrive, and climb to the roof of the coach, before and behind, until we are full outside. Then the guard comes with a list, carefully checks off all our names, and retires to the booking office, from which a minute later he returns. He is this time accompanied by the coachman, who is a handsome, roguish looking man.