A revolution of this same Chinese character did young Oxford of that era effect in the constitution of mail-coach society.  It was a perfect French revolution; and we had good reason to say, Ca ira.  In fact, it soon became too popular.  The “public,” a well known character, particularly disagreeable, though slightly respectable, and notorious for affecting the chief seats in synagogues, had at first loudly opposed this revolution; but when the opposition showed itself to be ineffectual, our disagreeable friend went into it with headlong zeal.  At first it was a sort of race between us; and, as the public is usually above thirty, (say generally from thirty to fifty years old,) naturally we of young Oxford, that averaged about twenty, had the advantage.  Then the public took to bribing, giving fees to horse-keepers, &c., who hired out their persons as warming-pans on the box-seat. That, you know, was shocking to our moral sensibilities.  Come to bribery, we observed, and there is an end to all morality, Aristotle’s, Cicero’s, or anybody’s.  And, besides, of what use was it?  For we bribed also.  And as our bribes to those of the public being demonstrated out of Euclid to be as five shillings to sixpence, here again young Oxford had the advantage.  But the contest was ruinous to the principles of the stable establishment about the mails.  The whole corporation was constantly bribed, rebribed, and often sur-rebribed; so that a horse-keeper, ostler, or helper, was held by the philosophical at that time to be the most corrupt character in the nation.

There was an impression upon the public mind, natural enough from the continually augmenting velocity of the mail, but quite erroneous, that an outside seat on this class of carriages was a post of danger.  On the contrary, I maintained that, if a man had become nervous from some gipsey prediction in his childhood, allocating to a particular moon now approaching some unknown danger, and he should inquire earnestly, “Whither can I go for shelter?  Is a prison the safest retreat?  Or a lunatic hospital?  Or the British Museum?” I should have replied, “Oh, no; I’ll tell you what to do.  Take lodgings for the next forty days on the box of his majesty’s mail.  Nobody can touch you there.  If it is by bills at ninety days after date that you are made unhappy—­if noters and protesters are the sort of wretches whose astrological shadows darken the house of life—­then note you what I vehemently protest, viz., that no matter though the sheriff in every county should be running after you with his posse, touch a hair of your head he cannot whilst you keep house, and have your legal domicile on the box of the mail.  It’s felony to stop the mail; even the sheriff cannot do that.  And an extra (no great matter if it grazes the sheriff) touch of the whip to the leaders at any time guarantees your safety.”  In fact, a bed-room in a quiet house, seems a safe enough retreat; yet it is liable to its own notorious