Note 151 — TAVERNS OF OLD TIMES.

The following curious advertisement, connected with an inn in the Canongate, appeared in the Edinburgh Evening Courant for July 1, 1754. The advertisement is surmounted by a woodcut representing the stage-coach, a towering vehicle, protruding at top—the coachman a stiff-looking, antique little figure, who holds the reins with both hands, as if he were afraid of the horses running away—a long whip streaming over his head and over the top of the coach, and falling down behind—six horses, like starved rats in appearance—a postillion upon one of the leaders, with a whip:

‘The Edinburgh Stage-Coach, for the better accommodation of Passengers, will be altered to a new genteel two-end Glass Machine, hung on Steel Springs, exceeding light and easy, to go in ten days in summer and twelve in winter; to set out the first Tuesday in March, and continue it from Hosea Eastgate’s, the Coach and Horses in Dean Street, Soho, London, and from John Somerville’s in the Canongate, Edinburgh, every other Tuesday, and meet at Burrowbridge on Saturday night, and set out from thence on Monday morning, and get to London and Edinburgh on Friday. In the winter to set out from London and Edinburgh every other [alternate] Monday morning, and to go to Burrowbridge on Saturday night; and to set out from thence on Monday morning, and get to London and Edinburgh on Saturday night. Passengers to pay as usual. Performed, if God permits, by your dutiful servant,

Hosea Eastgate.

‘Care is taken of small parcels according to their value.’