COACHING DAYS

Hokitika Guardian, 11 May 1926, Page 1

COACHING DAYS

LAST OF COBB’S. SYDNEY, April 29. Something of a stir was created in 1924, when wliat was claimed to he the last of Cobb and Co.’s picturesque old mail coaches was withdrawn from service in Queensland, and, when, following upon the acquisition of tho historic coach by the Commonwealth Government to house it until the museum at Canberra Was ready to receive it, it made its appearance in a procession at the Centenary celebrations in Brisbane, with Lord Forster on the box. It looks now, however, as though all this was a hit premature.

It is now stated that it was not flic last of Cobb’s old coaches, and that one of them is still in commission not 200 miles from Sydney. Laden with his Majesty’s mails, a miscellaneous cargo, and an occasional passenger, it rattles away still from a little town at the break of day. rolls over the ranges and past old abandoned mines, and faithful io tlio tradition of tlio historic old mail coach service invariably arrives at its deetination well on time, lair weather or foul. Possibly its days are numbered, possibly this last survivor of the roaring old days will he dethroned before long by the motor, and another link will bo broken with tho romantic associations of the pioneering days, but the recital of tho stony seems to show that one at least of the ov-er-faithful old mail coaches is still on the road. It shows also, in conlmon with the many horse-drawn vehicles for heavier use still in and about- Sydney, that while the horse is regarded as being doomed to extinction in an essentially mechanical age, there are to-day strong-holds from which it cannot be ousted. The establishment of an association in Sydney, with the backing of some of the biggest carriers among others, for the preservation and promotion of interests associated with tho horse for utilitarian purposes, the record entries in the blood stock classes at the Royal Show, and the use of the horse in city transport, especially where it is a question of short and heavy haulage, all go to show that the day is far distant vet when people will have to go into a museum to recall what manner of animal the horse was. Just now, especially, following upon Animal "Week, the horse, as the trusted and faithful servant of man, is much in the public eye