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ADVANCED ACCOUNTING 11TH

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CH.1. THE EQUITY METHOD OF ACCOUNTING FOR INVESTMENTS

Chapter Outline

I. Three methods are principally used to account for an investment in equity securities along
with a fair value option.
A. Fair value method: applied by an investor when only a small percentage of a
company’s voting stock is held.
1. Income is recognized when dividends are declared.
2. Portfolios are reported at fair value. If fair values are unavailable, investment is
reported at cost.

B. Consolidation: when one firm controls another (e.g., when a parent has a majority
interest in the voting stock of a subsidiary or control through variable interests, their
financial statements are consolidated and reported for the combined entity.

C. Equity method: applied when the investor has the ability to exercise significant
influence over operating and financial policies of the investee.
1. Ability to significantly influence investee is indicated by several factors including
representation on the board of directors, participation in policy-making, etc.
2. According to GAAP guidelines, the equity method is presumed to be applicable if
20 to 50 percent of the outstanding voting stock of the investee is held by the
investor.

Current financial reporting standards allow firms to elect to use fair value for any
investment in equity shares including those where the equity method would otherwise
apply. However, the option, once taken, is irrevocable. After 2008, an entity can make
the election for fair value treatment only upon acquisition of the equity shares. Dividends
received and changes in fair value over time are recognized as income.

II. Accounting for an investment: the equity method

A. The investment account is adjusted by the investor to reflect all changes in the equity
of the investee company.
B. Income is accrued by the investor as soon as it is earned by the investee.
C. Dividends declared by the investee create a reduction in the carrying amount of the
Investment account.

III. Special accounting procedures used in the application of the equity method

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 A. Reporting a change to the equity method when the ability to significantly influence an
investee is achieved through a series of acquisitions.
1. Initial purchase(s) will be accounted for by means of the fair value method (or at
cost) until the ability to significantly influence is attained.
2. At the point in time that the equity method becomes applicable, a retrospective
adjustment is made by the investor to convert all previously reported figures to the
equity method based on percentage of shares owned in those periods.
3. This restatement establishes comparability between the financial statements of all
years.
B. Investee income from other than continuing operations
1. Income items such as extraordinary gains and losses and discontinued operations
that are reported separately by the investee should be shown in the same manner
by the investor. The materiality of these other investee income elements (as it
affects the investor) continues to be a criterion for separate disclosure.
2. The investor recognizes its share of investee reported other comprehensive
income (OCI) through the investment account and the investor’s own OCI.
C. Investee losses
1. Losses reported by the investee create corresponding losses for the investor.
2. A permanent decline in the fair value of an investee’s stock should be recognized
immediately by the investor.
3. Investee losses can possibly reduce the carrying value of the investment account
to a zero balance. At that point, the equity method ceases to be applicable and
the fair-value method is subsequently used.
D. Reporting the sale of an equity investment
1. The equity method is consistently applied until the date of disposal to establish the
proper book value.
2. Following the sale, the equity method continues to be appropriate if enough shares
are still held to maintain the investor’s ability to significantly influence the investee.
If that ability has been lost, the fair-value method is subsequently used.

IV. Excess investment cost over book value acquired

A. The price paid by an investor for equity securities can vary significantly from the
underlying book value of the investee company primarily because the historical cost
based accounting model does not keep track of changes in a firm’s fair value.
B. Payments made in excess of underlying book value can sometimes be identified with
specific investee accounts such as inventory or equipment.
C. An extra acquisition price can also be assigned to anticipated benefits that are
expected to be derived from the investment. For accounting purposes, these amounts
are presumed to reflect an intangible asset referred to as goodwill. Goodwill is
calculated as any excess payment that is not attributable to specific assets and
liabilities of the investee. Because goodwill is an indefinite-lived asset, it is not
amortized.
V. Deferral of unrealized gross profit in inventory

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 A. Profits derived from intra-entity transactions are not considered completely earned
until the transferred goods are either consumed or resold to unrelated parties.
B. Downstream sales of inventory
1. “Downstream” refers to transfers made by the investor to the investee.
2. Intra-entity gross profits from sales are initially deferred under the equity method
and then recognized as income at the time of the inventory’s eventual disposal.
3. The amount of gross profit to be deferred is the investor’s ownership percentage
multiplied by the markup on the merchandise remaining at the end of the year.
C. Upstream sales of inventory
1. “Upstream” refers to transfers made by the investee to the investor.
2. Under the equity method, the deferral process for unrealized profits is identical for
upstream and downstream transfers. The procedures are separately identified in
Chapter One because the handling does vary within the consolidation process.

Answers to Discussion Questions

The textbook includes discussion questions to stimulate student thought and discussion. These
questions are also designed to allow students to consider relevant issues that might otherwise be
overlooked. Some of these questions may be addressed by the instructor in class to motivate
student discussion. Students should be encouraged to begin by defining the issue(s) in each
case. Next, authoritative accounting literature (FASB ASC) or other relevant literature can be
consulted as a preliminary step in arriving at logical actions. Frequently, the FASB Accounting
Standards Codification will provide the necessary support.

Unfortunately, in accounting, definitive resolutions to financial reporting questions are not always
available. Students often seem to believe that all accounting issues have been resolved in the
past so that accounting education is only a matter of learning to apply historically prescribed
procedures. However, in actual practice, the only real answer is often the one that provides the
fairest representation of the transactions being recorded. If an authoritative solution is not
available, students should be directed to list all of the issues involved and the consequences of
possible alternative actions. The various factors presented can be weighed to produce a viable
solution.

The discussion questions are designed to help students develop research and critical thinking
skills in addressing issues that go beyond the purely mechanical elements of accounting.

Did the Cost Method Invite Manipulation?

The cost method of accounting for investments often caused a lack of objectivity in reported
income figures. With a large block of the investee’s voting shares, an investor could influence the
amount and timing of the investee’s dividend distributions. Thus, when enjoying a good earnings
year, an investor might influence the investee to withhold dividend distributions until needed in a
subsequent year. Alternatively, if the investor judged that its current year earnings “needed a
boost,” it might influence the investee to pay a current year dividend.

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The equity method effectively removes managers’ ability to increase current income (or defer
income to future periods) through their influence over the timing and amounts of investee
dividend distributions.

At first glance it may seem that the fair value method allows managers to manipulate income
because investee dividends are recorded as income by the investor. However, dividends paid
typically are accompanied by a decrease in fair value (also recognized in income), thus leaving
reported net income unaffected.

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Does the Equity Method Really Apply Here?
The discussion in the case between the two accountants is limited to the reason for the
investment acquisition and the current percentage of ownership. Instead, they should be
examining the actual interaction that currently exists between the two companies. Although the
ability to exercise significant influence over operating and financial policies appears to be a rather
vague criterion, ASC 323 "Investments—Equity Method and Joint Ventures," clearly specifies
actual events that indicate this level of authority (paragraph 323-10-15-6):

Ability to exercise that influence may be indicated in several ways, such as representation on the
board of directors, participation in policy-making processes, material intra-entity transactions,
interchange of managerial personnel, or technological dependency. Another important
consideration is the extent of ownership by an investor in relation to the concentration of other
shareholdings, but substantial or majority ownership of the voting stock of an investee company
by another investor does not necessarily preclude the ability to exercise significant influence by
the investor.

In this case, the accountants would be wise to determine whether Dennis Bostitch or any other
member of the Highland Laboratories administration is participating in the management of
Abraham, Inc. If any individual from Highland's organization is on Abraham’s board of directors or
is participating in management decisions, the equity method would seem to be appropriate.
Likewise, if significant transactions have occurred between the companies (such as loans by
Highland to Abraham), the ability to apply significant influence becomes much more evident.

However, if James Abraham continues to operate Abraham, Inc., with little or no regard for
Highland, the equity method should not be applied. This possibility seems especially likely in this
case since one stockholder, James Abraham, continues to hold a majority (2/3) of the voting
stock. Thus, evidence of the ability to apply significant influence must be present before the
equity method is viewed as applicable. The mere holding of 1/3 of the stock is not conclusive.

Should Investor-Investee Relations Determine Investor Accounting for Investee

Currently firms can simply “elect” fair value or equity method accounting for their significant
influence investments. If the FASB ultimately decides on adding a business relationship criterion
for equity method use, firms would no longer have the ability to elect either treatment. The
combination of significant influence and a “business relation” would require equity method
accounting. The lack of either a “business relation” or significant influence would require fair value
accounting for the investment.

Under present rules, the reporting decision (fair value vs. equity method) depends on factors
specific to the reporting entity and its management. These factors may not be fully known to
investors. The FASB’s decision provides criteria for the appropriate accounting and would reduce
if not eliminate managerial discretion in financial reporting for these investments. Also, under
current standards, similar investment situations may have divergent outcomes across reporting
entities. Consequently, consistent criteria across reporting entities may improve comparability.

If the two firms operate in completely unrelated businesses, the investor firm may have little
incentive to influence the investee’s decisions even if it has the ability to do so. Thus, fair value
might provide a more relevant valuation for the investment. Alternatively, firms often interact
cooperatively in conducting their businesses (e.g., intra-entity transactions, marketing
agreements, etc.). Thus, an investee may act as an extension of the investor (i.e., an additional
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productive asset) with accrual accounting providing more relevant reporting. By recording the
investment at cost with periodic adjustments to accrue investee income, the investor firms report
the results of both their initial investment decision and the related income stream that results from
its influence in decision making. In essence, the investor, to the extent of its ownership interest, is
responsible for the investee’s net assets and the income that derives from these net assets.

Answers to Questions

1. The equity method should be applied if the ability to exercise significant influence over the
operating and financial policies of the investee has been achieved by the investor. However, if
actual control has been established, consolidating the financial information of the two
companies will normally be the appropriate method for reporting the investment.

2. According to FASB ASC paragraph 323-10-15-6 "Ability to exercise that influence may be
indicated in several ways, such as representation on the board of directors, participation in
policy-making processes, material intra-entity transactions, interchange of managerial
personnel, or technological dependency. Another important consideration is the extent of
ownership by an investor in relation to the extent of ownership of other shareholdings." The
most objective of the criteria established by the Board is that holding (either directly or
indirectly) 20 percent or more of the outstanding voting stock is presumed to constitute the
ability to hold significant influence over the decision-making process of the investee.

3. The dividends are reported as a deduction from the investment account, not revenue, to avoid
reporting the income from the investee twice. The equity method is appropriate when an
investor has the ability to exercise significant influence over the operating and financing
decisions of an investee. Because dividends represent financing decisions, the investor may
have the ability to influence dividend timing. If dividends were recorded as income (cash basis
of income recognition), managers could affect reported income in a way that does not reflect
actual performance. Therefore, in reflecting the close relationship between the investor and
investee, the equity method employs accrual accounting to record income as it is earned by
the investee. The investment account is increased for the investee”s earned income and then
decreased as the income is distributed, through dividends. From the investor’s view, the
decrease in the investment asset (the dividends received) is offset by an increase in cash.

4. If Jones cannot significantly influence the operating and financial policies of Sandridge, the
equity method should not be applied regardless of the ownership level. However, an owner of
25 percent of a company's outstanding voting stock is assumed to possess this ability. This
presumption stands until overcome by predominant evidence to the contrary.

Examples of indications that an investor may be unable to exercise significant influence over
the operating and financial policies of an investee include (ASC 323-10-15-10):
a. Opposition by the investee, such as litigation or complaints to governmental regulatory
authorities, challenges the investor's ability to exercise significant influence.
b. The investor and investee sign an agreement under which the investor surrenders
significant rights as a shareholder.
c. Majority ownership of the investee is concentrated among a small group of shareholders
who operate the investee without regard to the views of the investor.

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 d. The investor needs or wants more financial information to apply the equity method than is
available to the investee's other shareholders (for example, the investor wants quarterly
financial information from an investee that publicly reports only annually), tries to obtain
that information, and fails.
e. The investor tries and fails to obtain representation on the investee's board of directors.
5. The following events necessitate changes in this investment account.
a. Net income earned by Watts would be reflected by an increase in the investment balance
whereas a reported loss is shown as a reduction to that same account.
b. Dividends paid by the investee decrease its book value, thus requiring a corresponding
reduction to be recorded in the investment balance.
c. If, in the initial acquisition price, Smith paid extra amounts because specific investee
assets and liabilities had values differing from their book values, amortization of this
portion of the investment account is subsequently required. As an exception, if the specific
asset is land or goodwill, amortization is not appropriate.
d. Intra-entity gross profits created by sales between the investor and the investee must be
deferred until earned through usage or resale to outside parties. The initial deferral entry
made by the investor reduces the investment balance while the eventual recognition of the
gross profit increases this account.

6. The equity method has been criticized because it allows the investor to recognize income that
may not be received in any usable form during the foreseeable future. Income is being
accrued based on the investee's reported earnings, not on the dividends collected by the
investor. Frequently, equity income will exceed the cash dividends received by the investor
with no assurance that the difference will ever be forthcoming.

Many companies have contractual provisions (e.g., debt covenants, managerial compensation
contracts) based on ratios in the main body of the financial statements. Relative to
consolidation, a firm employing the equity method will report smaller values for assets and
liabilities. Consequently, higher rates of return for its assets and sales, as well as lower debt-
to-equity ratios may result. Meeting such contractual provisions of may provide managers
incentives to maintain technical eligibility for the equity method rather than full consolidation.

7. FASB ASC Topic 323 requires that a change to the equity method be reflected by a
retrospective adjustment. Although a different method may have been appropriate for the
original investment, comparable balances will not be readily apparent if the equity method is
now applied. For this reason, financial figures from all previous years are restated as if the
equity method had been applied consistently since the date of initial acquisition.

8. In reporting equity earnings for the current year, Riggins must separate its accrual into two
income components: (1) operating income and (2) extraordinary gain. This handling enables
the reader of the investor's financial statements to assess the nature of the earnings that are
being reported. As a prerequisite, any unusual and infrequent item recognized by the investee
must also be judged as material to the operations of Riggins for separate disclosure by the
investor to be necessary.

9. Under the equity method, losses are recognized by an investor at the time that they are
reported by the investee. However, because of the conservatism inherent in accounting, any
permanent losses in value should also be recorded immediately. Because the investee's stock

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 has suffered a permanent impairment in this question, the investor recognizes the loss
applicable to its investment.

10. Following the guidelines established by the ASC, Wilson would recognize an equity loss of
$120,000 (40 percent) stemming from Andrews' reported loss. However, since the book value
of this investment is only $100,000, Wilson's loss is limited to that amount with the remaining
$20,000 being omitted. Subsequent income will be recorded by the investor based on the
dividends received. If Andrews is ever able to generate sufficient future profits to offset the
total unrecognized losses, the investor will revert to the equity method.

11. In accounting, goodwill is derived as a residual figure. It is the investor's cost in excess of its
share of the fair value of the investee assets and liabilities. Although a portion of the
acquisition price may represent either goodwill or valuation adjustments to specific investee
assets and liabilities, the investor records the entire cost in a single investment account. No
separate identification of the cost components is made in the reporting process.
Subsequently, the cost figures attributed to specific accounts (having a limited life), besides
goodwill and other indefinite life assets, are amortized based on their anticipated lives. This
amortization reduces the investment and the accrued income in future years.

12. On June 19, Princeton removes the portion of this investment account that has been sold and
recognizes the resulting gross profit or loss. For proper valuation purposes, the equity method
is applied (based on the 40 percent ownership) from the beginning of Princeton's fiscal year
until June 19. Princeton's method of accounting for any remaining shares after June 19 will
depend upon the degree of influence that is retained. If Princeton still has the ability to
significantly influence the operating and financial policies of Yale, the equity method continues
to be appropriate based on the reduced percentage of ownership. Conversely, if Princeton no
longer holds this ability, the fair-value method becomes applicable, based on the remaining
equity value after the sale.

13. Downstream sales are made by the investor to the investee while upstream sales are from the
investee to the investor. These titles have been derived from the traditional positions given to
the two parties when presented on an organization-type chart. Under the equity method, no
accounting distinction is actually drawn between downstream and upstream sales. Separate
presentation is made in this chapter only because the distinction does become significant in
the consolidation process as will be demonstrated in Chapter Five.

14. The unrealized portion of an intra-entity gross profit is computed based on the markup on any
transferred inventory retained by the buyer at year's end. The markup percentage (based on
sales price) multiplied by the intra-entity ending inventory gives the seller’s profit remaining in
the buyer’s ending inventory. The product of the ownership percentage and this profit figure is
the unrealized gross profit from the intra-entity transaction. This profit is deferred in the
recognition of equity earnings until subsequently earned through use or resale to an unrelated
party.

15. Intra-entity transfers do not affect the financial reporting of the investee except that the
related party transactions must be appropriately disclosed and labeled.

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16. Under the fair value option, firms report the investment’s fair value as an asset and changes
in fair value as earnings. Dividends received from an investee are included in earnings under
the fair value option. Dividends received are not in income but instead reduce the investment
account under the equity method. Also, under the equity method, firms recognize their
ownership share of investee profits adjusted for excess cost amortizations and intra-entity
profits.

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Answers to Problems
1. D

2. B

3. C

4. B

5. D

6. A Acquisition price ............................................................................. $1,600,000

Equity income ($560,000 × 40%) .................................................... 224,000
Dividends (50,000 shares × $2.00) ................................................. (100,000)
Investment in Harrison Corporation as of December 31 .............. $1,724,000

7. A Acquisition price ....................................................... $700,000

Income accruals: 2012—$170,000 × 20% ................ 34,000
2013—$210,000 × 20% ................ 42,000
Amortization (see below): 2012 ................................ (10,000)
Amortization: 2013 .................................................... (10,000)
Dividends: 2012—$70,000 × 20% ............................. (14,000)
2013—$70,000 × 20% .............................. (14,000)
Investment in Bremm, December 31, 2013 .............. $728,000

Acquisition price ....................................................... $700,000

Bremm’s net assets acquired ($3,000,000 × 20%) .. (600,000)
Excess cost to patent................................................ $100,000
Annual amortization (10 year life) ........................... $10,000

8. B Purchase price of Baskett stock .................... $500,000

Book value of Baskett ($900,000 × 40%) ....... (360,000)
Cost in excess of book value .................... $140,000 Life Annual
Payment identified with undervalued ............ Amortization
Building ($140,000 × 40%) ......................... 56,000 7 yrs. $8,000
Trademark ($210,000 × 40%) ..................... 84,000 10 yrs. 8,400
Total ................................................................. $ -0- $16,400

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 Cost of investment .......................................................... $500,000
Basic income accrual ($90,000 × 40%) .................... 36,000
Amortization (above) ................................................. (16,400)
Dividend collected ($30,000 × 40%) ........................ (12,000)
Investment in Baskett ..................................................... $507,600

9. D The 2012 purchase is reported using the equity method.

Purchase price of Goldman stock ................................................. $600,000

Book value of Goldman stock ($1,200,000 × 40%)........................ (480,000)
Goodwill ........................................................................................... $120,000
Life of goodwill ................................................................................ indefinite
Annual amortization ........................................................................ (-0-)

Cost on January 1, 2012 ................................................................. $600,000

2012 Income accrued ($140,000 x 40%) ......................................... 56,000
2012 Dividend collected ($50,000 × 40%) ...................................... (20,000)
2013 Income accrued ($140,000 × 40%)......................................... 56,000
2013 Dividend collected ($50,000 × 40%) ...................................... (20,000)
2014 Income accrued ($140,000 × 40%)......................................... 56,000
2014 Dividend collected ($50,000 × 40%) ...................................... (20,000)
Investment in Goldman, 12/31/14.............................................. $708,000

10. D

11. A Gross profit rate (GPR): $36,000 ÷ $90,000 = 40%

Inventory remaining at year-end .................................................... $20,000
GPR................................................................................................... × 40%
Unrealized gross profit .............................................................. $8,000
Ownership ........................................................................................ × 30%
Intra-entity gross profit—deferred ............................................ $ 2,400

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12. B Purchase price of Steinbart shares ............................................... $530,000
Book value of Steinbart shares ($1,200,000 × 40%) ..................... (480,000)
Trade name ...................................................................................... $ 50,000
Life of trade name............................................................................ 20 years
Annual amortization ........................................................................ $ 2,500
2012 Gross profit rate = $30,000 ÷ $100,000 = 30%
2013 Gross profit rate = $54,000 ÷ $150,000 = 36%
2013—Equity income in Steinbart:
Income accrual ($110,000 × 40%) ................................................... $44,000
Amortization (above) ....................................................................... (2,500)
Recognition of 2012 unrealized gross profit
($25,000 × 30% GPR × 40% ownership).................................... 3,000
Deferral of 2013 unrealized gross profit
($45,000 × 36% GPR × 40% ownership ..................................... (6,480)
Equity income in Steinbart—2013 ............................................ $38,020

13. (6 minutes) (Investment account after one year)

Purchase price ..................................................................................... $ 1,160,000
Basic equity accrual ($260,000 × 40%) - 2013 ................................... 104,000
Amortization of copyright:
Excess payment ($1,160,000 – $820,000 = $340,000)
to copyright allocated over 10 year life .................................... (34,000)
Dividends (50,000 × 40%) .................................................................... (20,000)
Investment in O’Toole at December 31, 2013.................................... $1,210,000

14. (7 minutes)
a. Purchase price ................................................................................. $ 2,290,000
Equity income accrual ($720,000 × 35%) ....................................... 252,000
OCI loss accrual ($100,000 × 35%) ................................................. (35,000)
Dividends (20,000 × 35%) ................................................................ (7,000)
Investment in Steel at December 31, 2013 .................................... $2,500,000

b. Equity in Earnings of Steel = $252,000 (does not include OCI share which is
reported separately).

McGraw-Hill/Irwin © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2013

Hoyle, Schaefer, Doupnik, Advanced Accounting, 11/e 1-13
© 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
15. (10 minutes) (Investment account after 2 years with fair value option included)
a. Acquisition price ................................................................................. $60,000
Book value—assets minus liabilities ($125,000 × 40%) ............... 50,000
Excess payment ......................................................................... $10,000
Value of patent in excess of book value ($15,000 × 40%) ............ 6,000
Goodwill ........................................................................................... $ 4,000
Amortization:
Patent ($6,000 ÷ 6) ...................................................................... $1,000
Goodwill ...................................................................................... -0-
Annual amortization ............................................................. $1,000
Acquisition price ............................................................................. $60,000
Basic equity accrual 2012 ($30,000 × 40%) ................................... 12,000
Dividends—2012 ($10,000 × 40%) .................................................. (4,000)
Amortization—2012 (above) ........................................................... (1,000)
Investment in Holister, 12/31/12 ..................................................... $67,000
Basic equity accrual —2013 ($50,000 × 40%) ................................ 20,000
Dividends—2013 .............................................................................. (6,000)
Amortization—2013 (above) ........................................................... (1,000)
Investment in Holister, 12/31/13 ..................................................... $80,000
b. Dividend income ($15,000 × 40%) .................................................. $6,000
Increase in fair value ($75,000 – $68,000)...................................... 7,000
Investment income under fair value option—2013 ....................... $13,000

16. (10 minutes) (Equity entries for one year, includes intra-entity transfers but no
unearned gross profit)

Purchase price of Batson stock ..................................................... $210,000

Book value of Batson stock ($360,000 × 40%) .............................. (144,000)
Unidentified asset (goodwill).......................................................... $ 66,000
Life .................................................................................................... indefinite
Annual amortization ........................................................................ $ -0-

No unearned intra-entity profit exists at year’s end because all of the transferred
merchandise was used during the period.

McGraw-Hill/Irwin © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2013

1-14 Solutions Manual
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
16. (continued)

Investment in Batson, Inc. ........................................ 210,000

Cash (or a Liability) .............................................. 210,000
To record acquisition of a 40 percent interest in Batson.

Investment in Batson, Inc. ........................................ 32,000

Equity in Investee Income ................................... 32,000
To recognize 40 percent income earned during period by Batson, an
investment recorded by means of the equity method.

Cash ............................................................................ 10,000

Investment in Batson, Inc. ................................... 10,000
To record collection of dividend from investee recorded by means of the
equity method.

17. (20 Minutes) (Equity entries for one year, includes conversion to equity
method)

The 2012 purchase must be restated to the equity method.

FIRST PURCHASE—JANUARY 1, 2012

Purchase price of Denton stock ....................................... $210,000
Book value of Denton stock ($1,700,000 × 10%) ............. (170,000)
Cost in excess of book value ........................................... $40,000
Excess cost assigned to undervalued land
($100,000 × 10%) ............................................................ (10,000)
Trademark .......................................................................... $30,000
Life of trademark ............................................................... 10 years
Annual amortization .......................................................... $3,000

BOOK VALUE—DENTON—JANUARY 1, 2013 (before second purchase)

January 1, 2012 book value (given) ................................. $1,700,000
2012 Net income ................................................................ 240,000
2012 Dividends .................................................................. (90,000)
January 1, 2013 book value .......................................... $1,850,000
McGraw-Hill/Irwin © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2013
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Other documents randomly have
different content
 PICKFORD AND CO.’S ROYAL FLY-VAN, ABOUT 1820.
From a contemporary painting.

Meanwhile his anticipations were justified by the course of

events, Railways did but alter the methods of the carrying trade.
They not only did not destroy it, but, in the altered shape it took,
increased it fifty-fold. No fewer than twenty-one district managers
became necessary to the conduct of the business, which at length
gave employment to between three and four thousand people.
The central figure of this successful reorganisation became, like
William Chaplin, a power in the railway world. He was for some
years Chairman of the South-Eastern Railway, and in that capacity
strongly urged the purchase of Folkestone Harbour, an undertaking
then in the market. His co-directors did not at the time agree with
the proposal, but eventually came round to his way of thinking, and
brought up the subject again. Meanwhile he had privately purchased
the harbour. The high sense of duty that characterised him led to his
considering that, as Chairman of the Railway Company, and as
therefore trustee of the interests of the projectors, he could not
retain the property, and he accordingly transferred it at the price he
had given. He was at the same time a director of the Great Northern
Railway of France, but was in 1848, in consequence of a severe
illness, obliged to resign some of these activities, together with the
detailed management of Pickford’s, which he then left in the hands
of his three sons, but never gave up control of the business. He had
in the meantime purchased an estate at Woodside Park, Whetstone,
where he resided. He died there, March 24th, 1872, in his eighty-
seventh year.
The portrait of him, as he was in the full vigour of his manhood,
hangs amid the old-time relics still cherished in the Gresham Street
offices—among the muskets and the blunderbusses carried by the
guards of his fly-vans in the old days of the road.
 CHAPTER VI

ROBBERY AND ADVENTURE

The whole art and mystery of coach-robbing began to be studied at a

very early date. In the London Gazette during 1684 we find the
following extremely explicit advertisement:—

“A GENTLEMAN (passing with others in the

Northampton Stage Coach on Wednesday the 14th
instant, by Harding Common about two miles from Market-
street) was set upon by four Theeves, plain in habit but well-
horsed, and there (amongst other things) robbed of a Watch;
the description of it thus, The Maker’s Name was engraven on
the Back plate in French, Gulimus Petit à Londres; it was of a
large round Figure, flat, Gold Enamelled without, with variety
of Flowers of different colours, and within a Landskip, and by
a fall the Enamel was a little cracked; It had also a black
Seale-Skin plain Case lined with Green Velvet. If any will
produce it, and give notice to Mr. Samuel Gibs, Sadler near
the George Inn Northampton, or to Mr. Cross in Wood Street,
London, he shall have a Guinea reward.”

It is to be feared that the gentleman who thus mourned his

watch never regained it.
From this time forward, until well into the nineteenth century,
highwaymen and the highway-robbery of postboys, stage-coaches,
post-chaises, and all sorts and conditions of wayfarers became
commonplaces of travel. Dick Turpin’s name has acquired an undue
prominence, on account of Harrison Ainsworth elevating him upon a
pedestal, as the hero of a romance, but his was really neither a
prominent nor an heroic figure. Innumerable other practitioners
surpassed him. Claude Du Vall, who robbed and danced on
Hounslow Heath; Abershaw, the terror of the Surrey Commons;
Captain Hind, soldier and gentleman, warring with authority; Boulter,
whose depredations were conducted all over the kingdom; the
“Golden Farmer” on the Exeter Road, outside Bagshot: all these and
very many more were infinitely superior to Turpin, and, as they
phrased it, “spoke to” the coaches with great success during their
brief but crowded career. Nowadays, we hear much of overcrowded
professions; but those of the Army, the Church, and the Law are by
no means so crowded as were the ranks of the liberal profession of
highway robbery in the brave nights of crape mask and horse-pistols
at the cross-roads on the blasted heaths which then encompassed
the Metropolis; lonesome places of dreadful possibilities, which could
not have been more conveniently placed for the purpose of these
night-hawks had they been expressly designed for them.
Travellers, who looked upon being robbed once upon a journey
as the inevitable thing, very soon discovered this overcrowded state
of affairs, and resented it. Once upon a time, after the gentry who
plied their occupation on Hounslow Heath and Finchley or Putney
Commons had taken toll of purse and pocket, travellers had gone
their way chuckling at the store of notes and gold still safe in their
boots and the lining of their coats; but when every reckless blade
and every discharged footman or disbanded soldier took to the road,
the polite highwayman of the recognised robbing-places had no
sooner been left behind with a “good-night to you”—mutual good
wishes and a hearty au revoir! from Du Vall or one of his brethren—
than the territory of an unsuspected set of ruffians was entered;
rough-and-ready customers, who were not content until they had
got the passengers’ boots off, or had ripped up the linings of coats
and waistcoats, and then, having taken the last stiver, bade those
unhappy passengers, with a curse, begone. There was an even
deeper depth of misery—when, thus shorn and stripped, they
encountered a yet more rascally, more provincial and hungrier crew,
who in their exasperation at getting nothing, would sometimes
resort to personal violence, to vent their disappointment and ill-
humour.
At this overcrowded period, when the ordinary course of
business failed, the highwaymen were even known to practise upon
one another, like the Stock Exchange brokers of to-day, who, when
the public hold aloof, sharpen their wits and fill their pockets by
professional dealings.
In 1758 the monotony of highway robbery was broken by a
burglary at the “Bull and Mouth” coach-office, at 3 o’clock one
morning, when 47 parcels, chiefly containing plate and watches,
were stolen. The booty was valued at £500. The thieves carried the
parcels away in a cart, and left behind them a lighted candle, which
would have burned the place down had it not been discovered in
time by a coachman.
This was followed in May 1766 by an incident standing out in
highly humorous relief. The Public Advertiser in that month
announced:—“A few nights ago, among the passengers that were
going in the stage from Bath to London, were two supposed females
that had taken outside places. As they were climbing to their seats it
was observed that one of them had men’s shoes and stockings on,
and upon further search, Breeches were discovered also: this
consequently alarming the company, the person thus disguised was
taken into custody and locked up for the night. The next day he was
brought before a magistrate, and upon a strict examination into
matters, it appeared that he was a respectable tradesman who,
having cash and bills to a large amount on him, thus disguised
himself to escape the too urgent notice of the ‘Travelling Collectors.’”
Turnpike Trusts at this time encouraged Sabbatarian feeling by
charging double on Sundays; but “knowing” travellers sometimes
travelled on that day, and submitted to that imposition as the
cheaper of two evils. The one they thus escaped was the imminent
risk of being molested by highwaymen and stripped of all their
valuables; for those gay “Collectors,” as they delighted to style
themselves, did not attend to business on the Sabbath. We are not,
from this, to suppose that the highwaymen were at church, or at
home, reading improving literature. Not at all: they did not expect
wayfarers, and so took the day off. The Sunday Trading Act for many
years forbidding Lord’s Day employment, prevented coaches running
then, and so helped to give the hard-worked nocturnal gentlemen of
the road their needed weekly rest, and ensured them from missing
very much. Yet anxious travellers did sometimes go on Sundays, and
risk an information. When at last the mail-coaches were started, to
go seven times a week, and the Post Office itself set the example of
Sunday travel, away went the highwayman’s week-ends and the
travellers’ respite from wayside “Stand and deliver!” The stages then
plied on Sundays also.
As for the mails, they were immune from attack. The Post Office
early issued a warning against sending gold by them; but it did so,
not from fear of the highwaymen, but “from the prejudice it does the
coin by the friction.” Highwaymen were, in fact, little feared either by
the Department or by the mail-passengers, for not only did the
guard’s embattled condition secure them from attack, but the Post
Office introduced enactments dealing very severely with highway
robbery applied to the mail-coaches. The standing reward offered
the liege-subjects of the king for arresting an ordinary highwayman
was raised to £200 in the case of an attack on the mail, further
augmented by another £100 if within five miles of London. Mail-
coaches, by consequence, were left severely alone by the Turpins,
Abershaws, and others of their kind; and it has been said that a
mail-coach, unlike the old postboys carrying the mail-bags, was
never attacked.
Although this is very likely true, it must not be supposed that the
mails were never robbed. The distinction drawn is clear. Violence
was not shown, but robberies were frequent, often on a sensational
scale. One February night in 1810, some unknown persons
wrenched off the lock of the hind-boot on one of the mails and made
away with no fewer than sixteen North-Country bags. Where was
the guard? Probably kissing the pretty barmaid. Again, on November
9th, in that same year, nine bags were stolen from a mail at Bedford;
and so frequent grew robberies of all sorts that in January 1813 the
Superintendent of Mails was constrained to issue a warning notice to
his officials:—“The guards are desired by Mr. Hasker to be
particularly attentive to their mail-box. Depredations are committed
every night on some stage-coaches by stealing parcels. I shall relate
a few, which I trust will make you circumspect. The Bristol mail-
coach has been robbed within a week of the bankers’ parcel, value
£1000 or upwards. The Bristol mail-coach was robbed of money the
3rd instant to a large amount. The ‘Expedition’ coach has been twice
robbed in the last week—the last time of all the parcels out of the
seats. The ‘Telegraph’ was robbed last Monday night between the
Saracen’s Head, Aldgate, and Whitechapel Church, of all the parcels
out of the dicky. It was broken open while the guard was on it,
standing up blowing his horn. The York mail was robbed of parcels
out of the seats to a large amount.”
Many of these robberies cited by Hasker were, it will be noticed,
from stage-coaches. Despite this warning note, small thefts
continued. Then, in 1822, came the classic instance—the robbery
from the Ipswich Mail, when notes worth £31,198 mysteriously
disappeared. A month later the bulk of them, to the value of
£28,000, was returned, only a few, worth £3000, having been
successfully negotiated. On the night of June 6th, 1826, seven bags
were taken from the Dover Mail between Chatham and Rainham;
and in the following year a new sensation was provided by the
Warwick Mail being robbed of £20,000.
But the closing great robbery of the coaching age was that of
£5000 in notes from the “Potter” (Manchester and Stafford) coach,
October 1839. The notes, in a parcel addressed to a bank at Hanley,
were extracted from the hind-boot when the coach was near
Congleton.
 Adventures, says the proverb, are to the adventurous; but in
coaching times they befell those who desired a quiet life, equally
with the seekers after sensation and experience. Fortunately for the
peace of mind of our grandfathers, the startling adventure that befell
the up Exeter Mail at Winterslow Hut, on the night of October 20th,
1816, was unique. The coach had left Salisbury in the usual way,
and had proceeded several miles, when what was thought to be a
large calf was seen trotting beside the horses in the darkness. When
the lonely inn of Winterslow Hut was reached, the team had become
extremely nervous, and could scarcely be kept under control. At the
moment when the coachman pulled up, one of the horses was
seized by the supposed calf, and the others of the terrified team
began to kick and plunge violently. The guard very promptly drew
his blunderbuss, and was about to shoot this mysterious assailant,
when several men, accompanied by a large mastiff, came on the
scene; and it appeared that this ferocious “calf” was really a lioness,
escaped from a travelling menagerie, and these men come in
pursuit. The dog was holloaed on to the attack, and the lioness
thereupon left the horse, and, seizing him, tore the wretched animal
to pieces.
At length she was secured by a rope, and taken off in captivity.
The leading horse was fearfully mangled, but survived, and was
exhibited for a time, with great financial success, by the showman
whose lioness had wrought the mischief. When the interest had
subsided, “Pomegranate”—for that was the name of the horse—was
sold. He had been foaled in 1809, and was a thoroughbred, with
rather too much spirit for his owner, who had sold him out of his
stable for his bad temper. The severe work in coaches of that period
soon took the unruly nature out of such animals, and no complaint
was made of him in his long after-career on the Brighton and
Petworth stage-coach.
This exciting episode was, of course, the wonder of that age,
and two coaching artists made capital out of it, in the shape of very
effective plates. James Bollard was the author of one; the other was
by one Sauerweid, whose name is not familiar in work of this kind.
 Dark nights in wild country were fruitful in strange experiences,
aided, doubtless, by the potency of the parting glass as well as by
the blackness of the night and the ruggedness of the way. The
adventures of Jack Creery and Joe Lord, coachman and guard of the
pair-horse Lancaster and Kirkby Stephen Mail, one snowy night, form
a case in point. They had the coach to themselves, for it was not
good travelling weather. Creery, we are told, “felt sleepy”—a pretty
way of saying he was intoxicated—and so the guard took the reins.
In driving, this worthy, whose condition seems to have been only a
shade better than that of his companion, wandered in the snow into
a by-lane between Kirkby Stephen and Kirkby Lonsdale, and so lost
his way. After floundering about for some time, he aroused Creery,
and their united efforts, after alighting many times to read the
signposts, brought them in the middle of the night to a village,
where they were found by the aroused villagers loudly knocking at
the church door, under the impression that it was a public-house.
That snowstorm must have been a particularly blinding one, or the
brandy at their last house of call unusually strong.
THE LIONESS ATTACKING THE EXETER MAIL, OCTOBER 20th, 1816.
After A. Sauerweid.

Not often was coaching history marked by such a gruesome

incident as that which befell a coach on the Norwich Road. At
Ingatestone a lady, who was the only inside passenger, was
discovered to have died. Her son, travelling outside, was informed,
but after some hesitation it was decided that the coach should
proceed to its destination at Colchester. At Chelmsford, however, two
ladies presented themselves as would-be passengers. Inside seats
only were available, all the outsides being occupied. They were
informed of the circumstances, and that they could therefore not be
booked; but were so anxious to go by the coach that they overcame
their natural scruples, and rode with the dead woman to the
journey’s end.
Of winter travelling we have already heard something, and shall
hear more. How it struck one contemporary with those times we
may learn from a reminiscent old traveller, who, having had much
experience of old coaching methods, preferred the railway age—at
least in winter. Thus he recalls some of his experiences:—
 “For a day and night journey the agony was, on two occasions,
so intense that, although then in my youth, and hardy enough, I was
obliged to get off the coach and sleep a night on the road; by which
I don’t mean under the hedge, but in one of those fine old (and
highly expensive) inns that then were to be found at more or less
regular intervals along the great highways. Posting, generally with
four horses—a highly extravagant way of travelling, but one in great
favour with those who could afford it—maintained correspondingly
high charges at all these houses of entertainment. It was all very
well to rhapsodise over the climbing roses, the fragrant honeysuckle
and the odorous jessamine that wreathed the portals of the wayside
inn in summer, or to become eloquent over the roaring fire, at
whose ruddy blaze you toasted your feet in winter, but you had to
pay—and to pay pretty heavily—for these luxuries. I will suppose
that the traveller stopped for dinner, which, if left to the landlady,
generally consisted of eels, or other fresh-water fish, dressed in a
variety of ways, roast fowl, lamb or mutton cutlets, bread, cheese,
and celery, for which a charge of six or seven shillings was made. If
the meal took place after dark, there was an additional item of two
shillings or half a crown for wax lights. Then, ‘for the good of the
house’ and your own certain discomfort, there was a bottle of fine
crusted port (probably two days in bottle) seven shillings; or a bottle
of fiery sherry, just drawn from the wood, six shillings. To all these
charges must be added the waiter’s fee of one shilling or
eighteenpence a head. ‘Sleeping on the road’ absolved you from
some of these costs, but it was expensive in its own way. It involved
tea or supper, chambermaid and boots, as well as bed and breakfast.
Breakfast, with ham and eggs, three shillings; tea, with a few slices
of thin bread-and-butter, eighteenpence or two shillings; a soda and
brandy, eighteenpence.
“Once, in the depth of winter, I left Bramham Park, the seat of
George Lane-Fox, on the Great North Road, to proceed to London,
with a journey before me of 190 miles. I was well wrapped up, with
enough straw round my feet to conceal a covey of partridges; still,
after going about 37 miles, I felt myself so benumbed that I began
to think whether it would be wise to go on, or get off and sacrifice
my fare to London. Upon reaching Bawtry I felt more comfortable,
the guard at Doncaster having lent me a tarpaulin lined with
sheepskin; so I resolutely determined to brave the pitiless storm of
snow, now whitening the ground.
“‘Half an hour for supper,’ exclaimed the waiter, as we pulled up
at the ‘Crown.’ Down I got, entered the room, where there was a
bright fire blazing, devoured some cold beef, drank a glass of hot
brandy-and-water, and bravely went forth to face the elements. By
this time the snow had increased, the wind had got up, and my
heart failed. Back I rushed to the bar, ordered a bed, and remained
there for the night, finishing my journey the following day.
“Again, in coming from Bath by a night coach, I was so saturated
with wet and shivering with cold that I got out at Reading, rushed to
the ‘Bear,’ and slept there the night.”
Such was the best travelling that money could buy in the days
before England was—according to the coachmen—made a gridiron
by the railways.
 CHAPTER VII

SNOW AND FLOODS

Severe weather, in the shape of frosts, thunderstorms, or hurricanes,

was powerless to stop the coach-service, but exceptionally heavy
snowfalls occasionally did succeed in doing so for very brief
intervals; and floods, although they never were or could be so
general as to wholly suspend coaching, often brought individual
coaches to grief.
In the severe winter of 1798–9, when snow fell heavily and
continuously at the end of January and during the first week of
February, several mails, missing on February 1st, were still to seek
on April 27th, and St. Martin’s-le-Grand mourned them as wholly
lost. By May Day, however, they did succeed in running again!
Very few details survive of that exceptional season, or of that
other, in 1806, when Nevill, a guard on the Bristol Mail, was frozen
to death; but the records of the great snowstorm that began on the
Christmas night of 1836 are very full.
Christmas Day, 1836, fell on a Sunday, and it is worth notice, as
a singular coincidence in this country of only occasional heavy
snowfalls, that the Christmas night of 1886, also a Sunday night,
exactly half a century later, was marked by that well-remembered
snowstorm which disorganised the railway service quite as
effectually as that of 1836 did the coaches, and broke down and
destroyed nearly every telegraph-post and wire in the land.
 The famous snowstorm of 1836 affected all parts of the country,
and only on two mail routes were communications kept open.
Fourteen mail-coaches were abandoned on the various roads, and
for periods ranging from two to ten days the travels of others
ceased. The snowstorm itself continued for nearly a week. The two
routes remaining unconquered during this extraordinary time were
those to Portsmouth and Poole, but precisely why or how they were
thus distinguished is not made clear. There is no doubt that the
coachmen and guards on the Portsmouth and Poole Mails were
strenuous men, but that quality was common to many of those
engaged upon the mails. Nor can we find any favouring
circumstance of physical geography to account for this unusual good
fortune. On the contrary, those roads are in places exceptionally
bleak and exposed to high winds; and the strong wind that on this
occasion bared the heights and buried the hollows twenty and thirty
feet deep in snow-wreaths was an especial feature of the visitation.
Fortunately for all upon the roads—for those who laboured along
them, and for those who were brought to a standstill in the drifts—
the cold was not remarkably severe.
But never before, within living recollection, had the London mails
been stopped for a whole night within a few miles from London, and
never before had the intercourse between the South Coast and the
Metropolis been interrupted for two whole days. On Chatham Lines
the snow lay from thirty to forty feet deep, and everywhere, except
on the hilltops, it was higher than the roofs of the coaches. Nay,
according to a contemporary newspaper account, “The snow has
drifted to such an extent between Leicester and Northampton as to
occasion considerable difficulty and danger. In some parts of the
road passages have been cut where the snow had drifted to the
depth of thirty, forty, and in some places fifty feet.”
The great difficulty with which the coaches had on this occasion
to contend was not merely the getting along the roads, but, as with
these extraordinary depths of snow the natural features of the
country were mostly obscured, of keeping on or anywhere near the
road. Hedgerows were blotted out of existence: many trees had
fallen under their snowy burdens, and it was not unusual, when at
last the snowed-up mails were recovered, to find them strayed far
from their course, and in the middle of pastures and ploughlands.
Snowstorms produced curious travelling experiences. It was this
great occasion that effectually blocked all the up night coaches for
two days at Dunchurch, on the Holyhead Road, and so succeeded in
bringing together a party not unlike those weatherbound travellers
who in Dickens’ Christmas stories gather round the hearth, and,
comforting themselves with many jorums of punch, tell dramatic
stories. One party crowded the “Dun Cow,” another the “Green Man.”
Among the coaches were the Manchester “Beehive” and the “Red
Rover.” The first morning of their enforced leisure they—coachmen,
guards and passengers—made up a poaching party, with two guns
among sixteen of them. Jack Goodwin, guard of the “Beehive,” was
the only fortunate sportsman, and shot a hare. In the evening a
dancing party was held at the “Dun Cow” at the suggestion of the
landlord, who invited some friends, and the next morning Goodwin
turned wandering minstrel, taking with him a chosen few to help in
chorus. Wandering along the Rugby Road, they were entertained at
the farmhouses with elderberry wine and pork pies. Another
pleasant evening, and they were off the next morning for London.
Floods were infinitely more dangerous than snowstorms, and the
Great North Road, between Newark-on-Trent and Scarthing Moor,
was particularly subject to them, the Trent often, and on the very
slightest provocation of rain, flooding many miles of surrounding
country. It was here, and on these occasions, that the outsides had
the better bargain of the two classes of travelling, for they kept their
seats without fear of being drowned, while the insides went in
constant terror of a watery death, and often only escaped it by the
pitiful expedient of standing on their seats and so—keeping the
doubled-up attitude this necessity and the lowness of the roof
imperatively demanded—remaining until the levels were passed and
the dry uplands reached again.
 WINTER: GOING NORTH. After H. Alken.

In August 1829, when extraordinary floods devastated a great

part of Scotland, a stirring episode occurred in connection with them
and the mail-coach running through Banff. The tradition that his
Majesty’s mails were to be stopped for nobody and hindered by
nothing on the road was a very fine and fearless one, but it was
occasionally pushed to absurd lengths, and hideous dangers
provoked without reasonable cause. This episode of the Banff and
Inverness Mail is a case in point. The mail of the preceding day had
found it impracticable to go by its usual route, and so took another
course, by the Bridge of Alva. It was therefore supposed that the
mail following would adopt the same plan; but what was the
astonishment of the good folk of Banff when they perceived the
coach arrive, within a few minutes of its usual time, at the farther
end of the bridge that crosses the River Dovern. The people,
watching the eddying floods from the safe vantage-point of their
windows, strongly dissuaded the guard and coachman from
attempting to pass, the danger being so great; but, scouting the
idea of perils to be encountered in the very streets of the town,
those foolhardy persons drove straight along the bridge and into a
street that had been converted by the bursting of the river-bank into
the semblance of a mountain torrent. When the furious current
caught the coach, it was instantly dashed against the corner of
Gillan’s Inn, and the four animals swept off their legs. They rose
again, plunging and struggling for their lives, and a boat was pushed
off, with men eager to free the poor animals from their harness, to
enable them to swim away; but it was not possible to save more
than one. The other three were drowned.
By this time the coach, with coachman and guard, had been
flung upon the pavement, where the depth of water was less; and
there the guard was seen, clinging to the top, and the coachman
hanging by his hands from a lamp-post, regretting too late the
official ardour and slavery to tradition that had wrought such havoc.
When, for humanity’s sake, as well as to secure the mail-bags, a
boat came and rescued them, they were not suffered to depart
without much Aberdonian plain-speaking on the folly that had nearly
cost them their lives and endangered the correspondence of the
good folks of the ancient burgh of Banff.
 MAIL-COACH IN A SNOW-DRIFT. After J. Pollard.

There were no passengers on this occasion, but we are not to

suppose that, had there been any, they would have received much
consideration. The mail would probably have been driven on, just
the same. The official attitude of mind towards them may be judged
from the wintry horrors encountered by the Edinburgh to Glasgow
Mail in March 1827. It became embedded in the snow near
Kirkliston, and the guard, riding one horse and leading another
loaded with the bags, set off for Glasgow; while the coachman, with
the other horses, set off in the opposite direction to secure a fresh
team, pursued by the entreaties of the four terrified passengers,
beseeching him to use all diligence and return soon. There, on a
lonely road, immovably stuck in huge snowdrifts, they remained
throughout a bitter night, made additionally miserable by one of the
windows being broken. It was not until nine o’clock the next
morning that the coachman returned, with another man, but only
two horses. Having loaded them with some luggage and parcels, he
was, with a joke upon his lips, leaving the passengers to shift for
themselves, but was compelled to take one who had fallen ill. The
remaining three extricated themselves as best they could.
On September 11th, 1829, a month later than the watery
adventures at Banff, the Birmingham and Liverpool Mail had an
unfortunate experience at Smallwood Bridge, near Church Lawton, a
point where the road is crossed by an affluent of the River Weaver.
Unknown to those on the mail, the flooded stream had burst the
arch of the bridge, and when the coach came to the spot, along a
road almost axle-deep in water, it fell into the hole and was violently
overturned. Of the three inside passengers, only one escaped. He
was an agile young man, who broke the window and so extricated
himself. The horses were drowned, but the coachman was fortunate
enough to be washed against a tree-stump as the river hurried him
along at six miles an hour. The force of this happy meeting nearly
stunned him, but he held on, and eventually found his way ashore.
The guard was saved in a similar manner. Accidents almost forming
parallels with this were of frequent occurrence, and a seasoned
traveller exclaimed: “Give me a collision, a broken axle and an
overturn, a runaway team, a drunken coachman, snowstorms,
howling tempests; but Heaven preserve us from floods!”
MAIL-COACH IN A FLOOD. After J. Pollard.
 CHAPTER VIII

THE GOLDEN AGE, 1824–1848

It was “golden” chiefly from the sportsman’s point of view, and in

the opinions of those who found a keen delight in the perfection of
coach-building and harness-making, in the smartness of the
beautiful horses, and in the speed attained. From the sordid view-
point of the profit-and-loss account, although this was the age in
which Chaplin and a few others made their great fortunes, it was a
time when the high speed and other refinements of travelling made
the path of the coach-proprietor a thorny and uneasy one, often
barren of aught but honour. “You are ‘in it,’ I see,” said a proprietor
who himself had been severely bitten in this way, and had left the
business, to a coachman who, like many of his fellows, had long
cherished an ambition to become a coach-master, and had just
acquired a share: “you are ‘in it.’ Take care how you get out of it.”
One of the prominent men in it—Cooper, who ran a good line of
coaches on the Bath Road—found himself at last in the Bankruptcy
Court, and many smaller men appeared in the same place. The
greatest increase of cost was in the item of horses. In earlier times
the stock had lasted for years, despite the long stages and harder
pulling; but in this period of good roads and short stages, when, all
things being equal, a team should have lasted longer, the great
coach-proprietors found it necessary to renew their stock every
three years. Chaplin’s method of doing this was to replace one-third
of his horses every year.
 It is not to be supposed that the horses thus disposed of were
always broken down or worn out by their three years of strenuous
exertion in the fast coaches. They had only lost those agile qualities
necessary for that use, and, finding purchasers among farmers and
country tradesmen who had no occasion to gallop at eleven miles an
hour, lived very comfortably, grew sleek and fat, and must often,
from roadside paddocks, have beheld their successors slaving away
in the fast coaches; finding much satisfaction in their own altered
circumstances. Coachmen at this time usually drove between thirty
and forty miles out, and then took the up coach back, perhaps more
than half a day later. With such an arrangement the horses had the
same driver, and it was generally found that they worked much
better in such cases. The coachman’s responsibility for their
condition was also undivided, and the proprietor was easily able to
weed out from his coachmen those who lingered at the changes and
made up the lost time on the road, to the distress of their teams. It
was Chaplin who made it known, by all the vigorous language at his
command, that any one of his coachmen found in the possession of
one of those instruments of torture, resembling a cat-o’-nine-tails,
for punishing horses, and known as a “short Tommy” would be
instantly dismissed. Chaplin’s direct influence and interests may be
said to have described a radius of from forty to fifty miles from
London, and within that circle the “short Tommy” was therefore but
seldom seen. One historic occasion there was, however, when such
an object did most dramatically present itself before Chaplin, who
chanced to be at a wayside inn when one of his coaches pulled up to
change. On the roof was a warder with two convicts. As the
coachman, with much deliberation, lowered himself from his box to
the ground, the “short Tommy” he had been sitting on fell in front of
the windows, and as it lay there attracted the eagle eye of that great
coach-proprietor, who, sternly bent upon executing justice upon the
offender, strode forth. The coachman, dismayed, saw his employer
and the forbidden instrument at once, in one comprehensive,
understanding gaze; but he was a resourceful man, and handed it to
the warder, telling him, with a portentous wink and a warning jerk of
the head, that he had dropped something. That worthy, entering
into the spirit of the deception, accepted the pretended cat-o’-nine-
tails, and the coachman breathed freely again.
The days of ten- or eleven mile- stages, just at this time faded
away, gave a horse one stretch of so many miles a day; but in the
fast coaches of the newer age they ran, as we have seen, out and
home, six or seven miles each way. It was to the very last a disputed
point whether it was better for a horse to do his ten or eleven miles
and have done with it for the day, or to do his two shifts of six or
seven. Many coachmen who could not depend upon their
horsekeepers objected to two sweats a day; but this division of work
was a decided advantage to the horses, if well tended, and in such
cases they had the advantage of sleeping at home every night. The
number of horses kept for one of the fast coaches of this Augustan
age would have astonished the pioneers of coaching; one horse for
every mile travelled was the establishment kept up. Slow coaches
could do with fewer.
The average price paid for a coach-horse at this period was £30,
but some were acquired for a mere trifle, owing to their being
vicious or unmanageable in private hands. The private owner’s
dilemma was the coach-proprietor’s opportunity. It mattered little to
him what defects of temper a horse possessed so long as he was
sound in wind and limb. For the rest, a little discipline, harnessed
with three others, all subject to the rule of those very able
disciplinarians, the coachmen, quickly sufficed to bring such an
animal to reason. There were thus some very queer animals drawing
the coaches in these last years.
Some were purchased with a doubtful title. In such a case, to
prevent his being recognised and claimed, the horse would be
worked on the night mail.
The coachman’s ideal was a team matching in colour, but few
proprietors ever aimed at such perfection. The cost was great, and
nothing, save the gratification of the eye, was gained.
 With these business details the travelling public had no concern,
and it was only the box-seat passengers who learnt the history of
some of these cheap acquisitions from private stables. The box-seat
passenger was generally a sporting character, aspiring to that
companionship with the coachman from his love of horses and
driving, but it naturally often happened that some stolid person,
whose only desire was to be carried safely and who took no interest
in driving, found himself perched on that place of honour. When
such an one became the unwilling confidant of the coachman he was
apt to hear some nerve-shaking things. “See that ’ere near
wheeler?” said one Jehu. “Run avay vith a old gennelman last veek,
he did; broke his neck; friends just goin’ to shoot ’im; guv’nor gave
couple o’ suvrings for ’im, and ’ere ’e is. ’Ope we shan’t be upset!”
The nervous passenger effected an exchange for an inside place
with a sporting passenger at the next stage—which was precisely
the result anticipated by the coachman.
At this time, when the fast day-coaches were in every respect as
well-appointed as a gentleman’s private drag, it was the keenest
ambition of every dashing young traveller to occupy this box-seat—
an ambition generally satisfied by putting in an early appearance at
the starting-point and tipping the head yard-porter, who thereupon
placed a rug or some stable-cloths on it. These tips were not, as
generally supposed, the coachman’s perquisite. His turn came later
on, down the road.
The yard-porter was as a much more important official than the
present generation might suppose, and in busy yards, such as those
of the “Bull and Mouth” or the “Swan with Two Necks,” his weekly
income from tips probably amounted to £5, or more. Nor was he
merely the man with a pail of water, a broom and a pitchfork
conjured up mentally by the sound of his title; his was an important
department, and himself the ruler of many subordinates, whose
duties ranged from grooming and bedding-down the horses and
cleaning the stables to washing the coaches and cleaning and
polishing the harness and metal-work.
 At this period the public found themselves swiftly flying where
they had formerly slowly and laboriously crawled, and generally
compared ancient travelling with modern, greatly to the advantage
of modern times. But if the coach-proprietors who were at such
pains to compete with one another in establishing these swift and
well-appointed coaches were of opinion that in so doing they were
earning the admiration of the entire travelling public, they were very
soon undeceived, and those weaker brethren who could not
command the influence and the capital by which only could a fast
coach be appointed and established, found that, after all, there was
no immediate prospect of their being run off the road, and that a
considerable section of the public actually preferred to travel in slow
coaches, and would by no means consent to be whirled through the
country at eleven miles an hour, with only hurried intervals for
meals. “The art of travelling,” said an anonymous writer in 1827,
“has undergone great alterations in the course of the last thirty
years; these are not altogether improvements.” One of these
changes for the worse, in the opinion of this unknown scribe, was
that in the thunder of ten miles an hour there was no opportunity for
conversation. That must be a powerful tongue, he thought, which
could make itself heard amid the reverberations of such incessant
and intemperate whirlings. He could not help looking back with some
regret to the good old times when five or six miles an hour was the
utmost speed. Then there was something sober and sedate in the
fit-out and the set-out. All the faces in the inner-yard were so grave
and full of importance, and there was some seriousness in taking
leave. (Good reason, too, for such gravity and seriousness, think we
of later ages.) How scrupulous and polite were the inside
passengers, in making mutual accommodation of legs and arms,
band-boxes, sandwich-baskets and umbrellas! Then, too, says this
delightful snob, there was some difference between the inside and
the outside passengers: the gentlefolks within were not confounded
with the people on the outside. Distinctions were then better
observed, and preserved. Older stage-coach conversation, he
continued, was apt to be conducted with caution, for a false opening
might make an ill companion on a long journey. So approaches were
made skilfully, and with deliberation. A man was thought excessively
forward and talkative if he had got into politics before he had well
cleared the outskirts of London, and the first half-hour was generally
occupied with the light skirmishings of talk, with reconnoitrings of
one’s opposite neighbour’s countenance, and a variety of all-round
questions and answers put and returned merely to ascertain how far
the passengers were to be companions. These had to be framed
with the utmost discretion. With what vivacity and air of pleasant
expectation would one then ask an agreeable-looking person, “Are
you going all the way to Toppington?” or, on the other hand, if the
inside had its full complement of six, how carefully, and with what a
discreetly modulated voice, in order to avoid all suspicion of wishing
a speedy riddance, one would ask the same question of an unduly
stout person, who occupied much more than his or her share of
room.
The best conversational opening was considered to be, “Well, we
are now off the stones. What a beautiful morning! How charming the
outskirts of town! Pray, does not that house belong to——?”
Going up-hill one walked, to ease the horses, insides and
outsides then equal; the insides, greatly condescending, holding
converse with the occupants of the roof, always, however, with the
strict understanding—no less strict if not mentioned—that this
gracious act must not be taken advantage of by those outsiders
claiming acquaintance when the coach stopped at the inns, where
this all-important difference in caste was recognised by distinct
eating apartments being provided.
Those were the good old days, according to this critic, when
these customs were strictly observed, and when there was not only
time to eat, but almost to digest at coach-dinners and breakfasts;
when, too, there were generally a few minutes to spare while the
horses were being got ready, so that the passengers could wander
round the town and copy any curious epitaphs for the Gentleman’s
Magazine, or do a little shopping.
 Coachmen were of somewhat similar opinions. “Lord! sir,” said
Hine, coach-proprietor and coachman on the Brighton Road, in 1831,
who was, much against his will, obliged to accelerate his coaches in
order to keep pace with newcomers, but did not relish the necessity,
“we don’t travel half so comfortably now as we used to do. It is all
hurry and bustle nowadays, sir—no time even for a pipe and glass of
grog.” Not comfortable for the coachmen, who sadly missed their
wayside, and often wholly unauthorised, halts.
Cobbett, surly though his nature was, could not withhold
admiration when noticing these latter-day coaches. “Next to a fox-
hunt,” he says, “the finest sight in England is a stage-coach just
ready to start. A great sheep- or cattle-fair is a beautiful sight; but in
a stage-coach you see more of what man is capable of performing.
The vehicle itself; the harness, all so complete and so neatly
arranged, so strong, and clean, and good; the beautiful horses,
impatient to be off; the inside full, and the outside covered, in every
part, with men, women, and children, boxes, bags, bundles; the
coachman, taking his reins in one hand and his whip in the other,
gives a signal with his foot, and away they go, at the rate of seven
miles an hour—the population and the property of a hamlet. One of
these coaches coming in, after a long journey, is a sight not less
interesting. The horses are now all sweat and foam, the reek from
their bodies ascending like a cloud. The whole equipage is covered,
perhaps, with dust and dirt. But still, on it comes, as steady as the
hand of the clock. As a proof of the perfection to which this mode of
travelling has been brought, there is one coach which goes between
Exeter and London, whose proprietors agree to forfeit eightpence for
every minute the coach is behind its time at any of its stages; and
this coach, I believe, travels eight miles an hour, and that, too, upon
a very hilly, and at some seasons a very deep, road.”
 LATE FOR THE MAIL. After C. Cooper Henderson, 1848.

Yes, but had Cobbett written in still later years, he would have
found the “Quicksilver” attaining, between the stages, a speed of
nearly 12 miles an hour, and an average speed, including stops, of
11 miles, while a quite ordinary performance with the Shrewsbury
“Wonder” was 158 miles in 14 hours 45 minutes, including stops on
the way totalling 80 minutes. This gives a net average speed of a
little over 11½ miles an hour. The Manchester “Telegraph” and other
flyers made equally good performances. The “Tantivy,” one of the
most famous of coaches, did not equal these feats.
The “Tantivy,” London and Birmingham coach, was started in
1832. It left the “Blossoms” inn, Lawrence Lane, at 7 a.m., and was
in Birmingham by 7 p.m. The distance, by the route followed,
through Maidenhead, Henley, Oxford, Woodstock, Shipston-on-Stour,
and Stratford-on-Avon, was 125 miles, and, deducting one hour for
changing and refreshing, the speed was only slightly over 11 miles
an hour. This coach derived its name from the old word “Tantivy”—
an imitative sound as old as the seventeenth century, and often used
in the literature of that time, supposed to reproduce the note of the
huntsman’s horn, and conjuring up ideas of speed. For Cracknell, the
most famous of the coachmen of the “Tantivy,” who once drove the
125 miles at one sitting, and generally drove it between London and
Oxford, the “Tantivy Trot,” quoted elsewhere in these pages, was
written. Harry Salisbury drove between Oxford and Birmingham.
Among its other coachmen was Jerry Howse. Costar and Waddell, of
Oxford, horsed the “Tantivy” between Woodstock and London, and
Gardner, of Stratford-on-Avon, part-horsed it onwards, not wholly to
the satisfaction of Salisbury, who used to declare that the team out
of his yard was worth about £25 the lot, and that they had once
belonged to Shakespeare.
Competition in speed led naturally to rivalry in the building,
upholstering, and general appointments of the coaches. Sherman’s
Manchester “Estafette” was a splendid turn-out, holding its own
against many rivals in the last years of the coaching age. Inside was
a time-table elegantly engraved on ivory, showing all towns,
distances and intermediate times, illuminated at night by a reflector
lamp. It was at this time seriously proposed to light the coaches with
gas, with the double object of securing better lighting and effecting
a saving on the very heavy bills for oil consumed on the night
coaches. The idea was generally abandoned when it was found that
the gas tanks would be very heavy and that they would take up all
the room in one of the boots, generally reserved for luggage.
Coachmen and guards, too, professed anxiety lest they, sitting
directly over the fore and hind boots, should be blown up. But,
before the project was finally abandoned, it was fully proved that it
was practicable, and in January 1827 the Glasgow and Paisley
coaches were lit with gas, much to the amazement of the country
folk. “Guid Lord, Sandy,” said an old woman to her husband, “they’ve
laid gas-pipes all the way frae Glasgae Cross to Paisley!” But they
had done nothing of the sort; the gas was carried, as already
indicated, in a reservoir stowed away in the front boot.
Competition having already raged around the question of speed,
and having introduced unwonted luxuries in travelling, turned next
to the more deadly form of rate-cutting. In 1834 the coach-
proprietors on three great routes were engaged in this game of
Beggar-my-neighbour. In that year the fares to Birmingham,
Liverpool, and Manchester fell to less than half their former price,
and it was possible to travel to Birmingham for 20s. inside and 10s.
out, or to Liverpool or Manchester for 40s. inside or 20s. out. They
had little chance of being raised again, for, by the time the weaker
men had been crushed out of existence, the railways were
threatening the whole industry of coaching.
But reducing the fares by one-half was not always the last word
in these bitter contests. There was a period on the Brighton Road
when one might have been carried those 52 miles in 6 hours for 5s.,
with a free lunch and wine at the end of the journey and your
money returned if the coach did not keep its time. The “Golden
Age,” indeed!
At this period, when the long-distance coaching business was so
severely cut up, those proprietors who served the districts
surrounding London did exceedingly well. Coaching annals are
almost silent on the subject of these suburban coaches, for, being
drawn by only two horses, they were regarded by the four-in-hand
artists with contempt. It has thus, in the absence of available
information, often puzzled inquiring minds in the present generation
to understand how the heavy passenger traffic was conducted
between London and the outlying towns and villages within a radius
of twenty miles. Those districts were served by these “short stages,”
as they were called—coaches drawn by two horses, and making two
or more journeys each way daily. There was an incredibly large
number of these useful vehicles, which were in relation to the mails
and fast long-distance coaches what the suburban trains are to the
expresses in our own day. The ordinary coach-proprietors had rarely
anything to do with these conveyances, which came to and set out
from a number of obscure inns and coach-offices in all parts of the
City and the West End.
 One of these short stages is mentioned in David Copperfield,
where David’s page-boy, stealing Dora’s watch and selling it,
purchases a second-hand flute and expends the balance of his ill-
gotten gains in incessantly travelling up and down the road between
London and Uxbridge. Evidently a lover of the road, this larcenous
page-boy. Most boys in buttons (and certainly the typical page-boy
of the typical farce) would have expended the plunder in pastry or
tobacco. This particular specimen, the diligent Dickens-reader will
remember, was taken to Bow Street on the completion of his
fifteenth journey, when four shillings and sixpence and the second-
hand flute—which he couldn’t play—were found upon him. If we
were contemplating an examination-paper on David Copperfield,
with special reference to prices and social life early in the nineteenth
century, we might put the following poser:—“State the average price
obtainable on the average lady’s gold watch, and, deducting the
purchase price of a second-hand flute, deduce from the resulting
sum, and from the facts of the boy having made the journey fifteen
times and still being in possession of four-and-sixpence, the cost of a
single outside journey between London and Uxbridge.”
The fare was, as a matter of fact, half a crown. There were no
fewer than seven short stages between London and Uxbridge daily,
each making two journeys. What of those London inns whence they
started? Where are they now? Echo does not answer “where?” as
she is commonly said to do, because it is not in the nature of echoes
to repeat the first word of a sentence. No; echo merely reverberates
“now?” with a questioning inflection.
The “Goose and Gridiron,” whose proper name was originally the
“Swan and Harp,” in St. Paul’s Churchyard, was one of these
starting-points. From the same inn went the Richmond and many
other suburban stages. That old inn was demolished about 1888.
The “Boar and Castle and Oxford Hotel,” No. 6, Oxford Street, was
another house of call for the Uxbridge stages. It vanished long ago,
and those who seek it will only find on its site the Oxford Music Hall
and Restaurant—bearing a different number, for the street was
renumbered in 1881. The “Boar and Castle” was a large, plain,
stucco-fronted house, with its name writ large across the front in
raised letters.
As for the “Old Bell,” another of these starting-points of the
Uxbridge coaches, it was pulled down in 1897. It stood on the site of
Gamage’s, in Holborn, opposite Fetter Lane. Of another Uxbridge
house, the “Bull,” a few doors away, the sign, the figure of a
ferocious black bull, very properly chained and fastened by a secure
girth, still exists on the frontage, but “Black Bull Chambers,” a set of
grimy modern “model” dwellings, now occupy the coach-yard. The
“Bell and Crown,” afterwards “Ridler’s,” next Furnival’s Inn, has been
swept away to help make room for an extension of the Prudential
Assurance Offices, and the “New Inn,” 52, Old Bailey, has given
place to warehouses and the premises of a firm of wholesale
newsagents. Away westward, the Uxbridge and other short stages
called at the “Green Man and Still,” at the corner of Argyll Street,
Oxford Circus, and at the “Gloucester Warehouse,” near Park Lane.
The last-named was rebuilt forty years ago, but the “Green Man and
Still” was only demolished in February 1901.