16 The New - York Historical Society m pre-Civil War editor of The Coach-Makers' Magazine describes the joys of coaching in its hey-day as follows: As we look back to those days—not indeed, very far remote, when our streets were filled with the thunder of arriving and departing coaches, a tender regret takes possession of our soul. For a moment the railroad is out of favor with us.... We recall the excursions, pleasant, fairy-like. .. . We behold ourselves seated beside the coachman—perhaps, O, joy of joys! entrusted with the "lines," [drawn over the backs of] four shining bay nags, half-blood, whirling along the freshly-washed carriage, with its nine inside, and a huge pile of baggage on the rack behind, as if it were a feather. Fleetly and gayly the gallant leaders skim the road like deer, tossing their heads, their little sensitive ears in motion ... at the rate of ten miles an hour. . . . What a bustle as the coach drew up, and the portly coachman, tossing his reins to a hostler, descended with dignity from his box, like a king from his throne! ... There was a poetry and picturesqueness about those old days of stage-coach traveling lacking to our present mode of progression, but alas!— "The good times when our fathers rode In safety by the stage Have passed before the onward march Of this progressive age: And now no goodly coach and four Draws up beside the stagehouse door. "O! that was music when at morn As winding round by yon old mill, The driver blew his bright tin horn, And echo answered from the hill! Now, echoing horn, nor prancing team Is heard amid this age of steam. "But drawn beneath some shattered shed The old stage-coach neglected stands; Its curtains flapping in the wind— The ghost of ruins' waiving hands; While on the wheels the gathering rust Proclaims the mortal, 'dust to dust.' "