The Sun.
London, England, 1856-03-28 00:00:00

THE OLD COACHING DAYS.

Formerly, in the old coaching days, the entrance into
London was a sight that no country in the world could
parallel, and one of which the first impression was well
calculated to astound the fore'gner, who had been accus-
tomed in his own country to travel along roads that were
about as loose in soil and as furrowed with ruts as
ploughed fields, and in mails, too, that were a kind of
cross between a fly waggon and an omnibus, and not
nearly so rapid as hearses when returning from a
funeral, and with the horses harnessed to the un-
sightly vehicle with tranes of rope, and a huge-
booted driver continually shouting and swearing at
the team. The entre into the metropolis, on the can-
trary, was over a roadway that was positively as hard as
steel and as level as water, and upon which the patter of
the horses' hoofs rang with an almost metallic sound.
Then the coachman was often an English gentleman,
and even in some cases a person of rank, whilst the
vehicle itself was a very model of lightness and elegance.
The horses, too, were such thorough-bred animals as
England alone could produce, and their entire leather
trappings as brightly polished as a dandy's boots. In
those days, even London people themselves were so de-
lighted with the eight of the mails and fast coaches leav-
ing the metropolis at night, that there was a large crowd
invariably congregated around the Angel at Islington,
the White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, and the Elephant
and Castle across the water, at S every evening, to see
the royal stages start into the country by their different
routes. On the King's birth-day, too, the scene at those
inns was assuredly as picturesque av it was entirely na-
tional. The exterior of the taverns was studded over with
lights of many colours, arranged in tasty luminous lines,
the sleek coated blood horses were all newly harnessed,
and the bright brass ornaments on their trappings glittered
again in the glare of the illumination. The coachman and
guard were in unsullied scarlet coats worn for the first
time that day ; and there were gay rosettes of ribbon
and bunches of flowers at each of the horses' heads
as as in each of the coachmen's button-hole, while the
freshly-painted mails were packed so thickly in front of
the tavern door that the teams were all of a heap there ;
and the air kept continually resounding with the tinny
twang of the post-horns of the newly•arriving and de-
parting vehicles.— World of London.

STATE OF TRADE.--M AY CHESTER March 27. --There
has been a moderate business done'in cloth for India,
and with the orders in band for future delivery of shirt-
lags, madapollams, and jaconet., and the demand spring-
ing up, manufacturers are able to command full prices.
Buyers are, nevertheless, acting with much caution,
finding that foreign markets respond but slowly, it at
all, to the demand for extra prices. According to the
estimate of l‘lessrs. George Fraser, Son, and Co., yarns
are now id. per lb., and India shirtings 9d. to 101 d.
per piece dearer than in last October ; and it will
readily he conceived that this is no trifling bar to the
rapid extension of business in the markets of India,
which have in the meantime received large supplies of
cheaper goods than can now be obtained here. There
is still some business in longcloths for Alexandria, and
the home trade houses continue well supplied with orders
from the country. In yarns there is only a moderate
business, and no change in prices.