THE MAIL COACH "LIGHTNING" Presented by Mr. E. Victor Loew, 1944 MR. e. victor loew, donor of the Mail Coach "Lightning" and one-time practitioner of the venerable sport of coaching, may be surprised to learn that the Society has among its holdings (in the Bella C. Landauer Collection) a letter penned by himself while the century was in swaddling clothes and the Coaching Club was still carrying on the aristocratic traditions of the road. This letter is addressed to the Hon. Phoenix Ingraham and dated March 19th, 1900: Dear Phoenix, I am giving Miss Thomas a coaching party next Saturday, and I would like to have you go with us. If the weather permits we will start from the Riding Club Saturday morning March 24th at 10 o'clock, drive out to the Country Club for luncheon and return at six o'clock. Hoping that you may not have a previous engagement, I am, Yours sincerely, E. Victor Loew, Jr. What personal reminiscences this letter may recall to its author we do not pretend to know, except that they must surely be pleasant and exhilarating. To us, however, this invitation to a coaching party in 1900 conjures up a whole period in the history of transportation—a period represented so proudly by this crowning addition to the Society's collection of coaches. The coach, which occupies so important and honorable a place in that history, both began and ended its long and useful career, as an object of luxury. When it first appeared in England about 1564 it was considered as great a luxury as tobacco and at first even the nobility indulged its desire for such ostentation only at risk