The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-07-18
OLD ROBSON AND HIS CHOICE.
tSprine6eid Republican.l

S'I 1ne Oio CaIIlcIS or Engl ana, anC
 among the most celebrated characters O
 Cambridge, where he lived and carried
 on his business, Tobias Hobson. He va:
 the first to set up an establishment for
 hack horses, and his resolution in oblig.
 ing whoever came 10 hire to take the one
 that stood next to the stable-door, and il
 that was gone, the next, and SO on iu
 regular sequence, gave birth to the we'll
 known saying of Hobson's choice D.
 this or none. A carrier and livery stable
 keeper who has been preserved like fly
 in amber in such precious and perma.
 nent deposits as the Spectator and
 the sonnets of Milton, deserves a more
 extended notice. He made a consider
 able fortune, and there was in the days
 of the commonwealth a picture of him
 at Cambridge, for which a considerable
 sum had been refused, as it was looked
 upon as part of the wagon-office ou the
 wall of which it hung. Steele, speaking
 probably of this same portrait, says This memorable man stands drawn in
 fresco at an inn (which he used) in Bish- opsgate street, with a hundred-pound
 bag under his arm, with this inscription
 upon the said bag
 The fruitful mother of an hundred more. f" Sir Richard also euloeizes Hobson as a very honorable man, possessing great ability and invention, and one that saw
 where there might good profit arise, and observing that the scholars rid hard, his manner was to keep large stable of horses lover forty) with boots, brides, and whips, to furnish the gentlemen at once, without going from college to col lege to borrow" Sieele's disquisition is for the purpose of explaining the pro- verb. which he says by vulgar error is taken and used when a man is reduced to an extremity-whereas the propriety of the maxim is to use it when you would say there is plenty, but you must make such choice as not to hurt another who IS to come after you.
 The article from the O6servey also fails to note that this old carrier, who united to his regular business of carrier of goods and persons on pack horses that of modern livery-stable keeper, letting horses for hire, has been immortalized by Milton in his lines on the university carrier, who sickened in the time of his vacancy, being forbid to go to London by reason of the plague :" and in another longer poem on the same. The first is the most chare cteristic:
 Here lies old Hobson; death hath broke his
 girt,
 And here, alas hath laid him in the dirt;
 Or else the ways being foul, twenty to one
 He's here stuck in a slough and overthrown. Twas such shifter that, If truth were known, Death was half glad when he got him down |; For he had at any tune, this ten years full, Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and the And surely death could never have prevailed Had not his weekly course of carriage failed i; But lately, finding him so long at home,
 And thinking now his journeys end W. come, And that he had ta' len up his latest inn
 In the kind office of a chamberlain
 Showed him his room where he must lodge
 the night,
 Pulled off his boots and took away the light, lfany ask for him, it shall be said,
 Hooson has supp d, and's newly gone to bed.
 The old carriers in their day were power in the land-the predeces sors of the famous Tony Wellers and modern railroad conductors Two hundred and fifty years ago the communication be- tween the north of England and the uni versailles was kept up altogether by car riers, who pursued their tedious route with trains of pack-horses, and to their care was consigned not only the pack ages but the persons of the scholars. It was through them episiolary cores. pondence was carried on, and it required about month for a letter to be ex- changed between Yorkshire and Oxford. Old Hobson's trade of horse-lettins vas a refinement upon the old trade of the postmaster. He intrusted horse to the Cambridge student for a pleasure ride, and sent no guide to feed the horse and bring 1t back, as was usual when a horse was hired to ride "post" It was not till after old Hobson's days that the innova- ton of wagons came in, in which passen- gers were carried from city to city Rod erick Random tried both conveyances. and finding neither satisfactory, resolved 1 to travel the rest of the journey on foot, rather than proceed in such disagree able manner. James l. of England was nearly i've weeks on his padded saddle | in his royal passage from Edinburg to London, a distance of four hundred miles. | The description which Smollett gives of Random's ride to London from the north | in wagon, is known to have been de- 1 rived from his own experience. The jour- ney took about two weeks, and the mis- | t~kes, the Quarrels and the mirth of the | passengers, are told by the novelist with | a vivaci'y which would be admirable without its coarseness. We can hardly realize that the roads in now macadamized England, were then worse than our. at the west in the spring. Vanbrugh. in the comedy of "The Provoked Husb and" gives an amusing account of the progress of Yorkshire family to town in their own equipage. Nothing but mischief Some devils trick or other played us all th' day long Crack goes one thing goes anotherl Woa says Roger then souse!-we are all set fast in a slough " To nde in a cart was from very early times reckoned ignominious, as they were used to cart " evil persons. who were confined in them, as the same class were consequently in piAories- When it was wished to deprive any one of his reputation he was made to mount a cart This we see in Whitier's most s Il ing ballad of !" Floyd Iieson: