Morning journal and courier., 1880-09-04
The Founder Of Amateur Coaching.

[ London Correspondence or the New IOrk HOur.J William Frederick Windham gave amateur l stage-coaching it's first impulse by starting daily trip between the ancient cathedral city of Norwich and Cromer, quaint old semi Scandinavian watering place of the gentry of East Anglia. There are, by the way, few hooks in the British islands so well worth the exploration of the archseologist as Cromer. Close to Cromer Julius Caesar disembarked his legions, and in the years of the last strug gle of the Saxons with the invaders from Nor mandy, there landed on the Cromer beaches many ships crew of Norsemen to take @
 hand in the fray and 8 share of booty. There
 were but few people of Norwich who ever went to Cromer, and there were none of the inhabitants of Cromer who went to
 Norwich, when Windham began to be a stage coachman between the two places It was run of two-and-twenty miles, that passengers only took in order to be driven by one of the richest young men in England Nineteen
 years ago he had anticipated Col Delancey
 Kane in everything hippomaniacal. His three
 coaches were masterpieces by the best work
 men of Long Acre, and, differing in no ways
 either in shape or equipment from those of
 our gilded youth, except only in that they
 were built for actual use. They were horsed
 with stud of 40 blood-horses, mostly ches-
 nuts and sorrels, picked for their fire and
 spirit. Of these, 10 were stabled in the yard
 of the Norfolk hotel, in Norwich, 10 at
 Swafham, 10 at Alysham, halfway house
 between Norwich and Cromer, and 10 in Gro
 mer. The harness was made after antique
 models and the brass was especially fine.
 The start from Norwich was made in this
 ceremonious manner: At 10 minutes to the
 Cromer-bound passengers entered the broad
 stable-yard of thefNorfolk hotel by small
 side gate, the main doors being carefully
 closed. There stood the coach, shining like
 glass, the hveried guard at it's door and four
 young horses prancing in their harness, each
 with smart groom, top-booted and cockaded
 at it's head At minutes to 5 there would be a
 stir and buzz among the idle hostlers at the door of the bar parlor. from which emerged a large, stout young man, with blank face and leaden eyes. Careless of the civility of his
 parasites, he would shamble through them and chamber awkwardly to the box, looking neither to the. right nor left. He was pow erful man. with broad shoulders and an ugly stoop, who dressed finely, and for all his strange uncouthness, had a certain well air His head was ridiculously small and he wore hat too small for his head. His hands were large and gloved in primrose kids, and there was always a nose-gay in his button hole It took him minute to settle in his seat and gather up the bunch of reins that the obsequious guard handed to him. Then the big gates were thrown back and the pa- geant stood displayed to the crowd without. In the middle of the street stood stableman,
 his eyes fixed on St. Peter's clock. On the stroke of mp went his eager hand, the mob parted suddenly, there was loud crack of whip, the four horses bounded out of the grasp of the grooms, and with roar and
 attle and the cheers of the vulgar, the father of modern amateur coaching whirled his team round the gate-post and sped them full gallop 1 up and down hill, through narrow streets and across breezy squares, until he drew rein and slaekened his pace among the fields of the suburbs.
 It was windhams custom to say nothing l while he drove, even to the passenger who was l occupied che box-seat. His pale, dull face | as chanpeless as the desert and there was | perpetual stupor in his lack-lustre eyes. He l drove, however, with an iron nerve and gen.
 orally at ga1lop. Fortunately, the highway. l though it went through the wilderness and 1 over barren moers on which the broom and l gorse alone fourished, was the perfection of 1 smoothness and elasticity. The first stop .,aee WAS at Swaffham, pretty little village, at whose simple hostelry Windham sharply | halted his panting horses for two minutes. l There was some immediate drinking of beer and buxom maid tripped out to hand the stolid coachman a silver tankard of ale, with