San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-04-13
GOT u TO LOOK PRIVATE
EQUIPAGES FOR RICH CUSTOMERS
BY THE MONTH OR YEAR.

A Singular Business Organized to Furnish
Wealthy Families with Elegant Private
Notwithstanding About Washing
ton News and Coachmen.
prosperous hveryman living on Fifth
avenue makes it his special object to study
the desires of those who affect what Thack-
cray calls the coach got up to look private. :"
He let's out thirty such equipages by the
month, and there are others who do quite as
large a business of the same sort. Miladis
hired victoria, horses and coachman go with
her as her own when she leaves town for
the summer. In her absence the winter
brougham is sent to the shop for repairs, and
when it has been put in thorough order it is
wheeled away into dark loft to await her
return, for the brougham is miladi's even in
her absence, and it must not, be desecrated by
the'tranSent customer If, however miladi
expects to pass a year in Europe, repairs to
the brougham will include the substitution of
some other PERSONS arms on the panel
THE COST OF STYLE.
Of course scores of families that spend but
a short season in New York hire their coach
and coachman for only a few months or, per-
udES, lc" Weeks. IIlNdIe arms CHI scarcely
be expected on a coach taken at these terms,
although there are happy condolences where
good people with a taste for heraldry have hit
upon the same arms and have succcvi.i OPP
portunely to another's coach. 1t happens
often that those who use handsome hIred
brougham in town are content with Il very
simple equipage and AN unlivericd COachman
in the country.
Liverymen make pretty penny at this
sort of business. PreSentable coach horses
can be bought at from S275 to $:}225 each, while
a brougham costs 81 POO and a victoria 81 900.
The brOugham is kept in perfect repair for
$50 year and the victoria for 500. These
are liberal estimates At $3.50 per month the
liverymtn can well afford to furnish every
thing in first rate style. OF course there is a
profit on the coachman. When the horses
lose something of their STYLE say in two or
three years, and the coaches have been re-
paired three or four times they are hired for
general public convenience.
They are then good for three tolfve years
more Horses for this business are seldom
bought at less than six or more than nine
years old They come from the west, where
they are bred especially for this purpose.
Style is one of the first conditions, but a Dove
all things they must be well broken. If they
survive four or five years of general hack
business they are sold to farmers who pay
from $50 to $50 for such horses, and expect
to use them from three to seven years.
Those who use the coach got up to look
private" are not necessarily either snowy
poor or shoddy rich. The secret of the prac-
tice is in part the lack of stable room in New
York. II an Intelligent real estate dealer
were asked to instance an example of osten.
tatious wealth in this city he would probably
mention the Washington News" Not one
New Yorker in a thousand could tell what or
where this is, or these are, whichever you
prefer. OF course washington News"
means simply Washington stables.
The word news" is intensely British in its
modern usage. 1t is a common name in Lon
don for stables, but probably occurs nowhere
in this country, save in the instance Just
named. You'll find Washington News" in
gilt letters on a little blue board at the en-
trance of broad private alley running east
and west from Fifth avenue just above Wash
ington square. The news are the stables for
about dozen ultra fashionable old houses on
North Washington square. Here are housed
the horses, coaches and coachmen of New
York's most exclusive residents. Real estate
men, who know the value of land in that re-
gion, look with awe upon people who deliber-
ately devote that much space to the mere
housing of horses and coachmen. New
Workers who cannot find stable room on their
own property must keep their equipages at
boarding stables, and from the boarding
stable 10 tia GirGd coach is only short step,