Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/82



Mr. Walter Hancock. 5 August, 1831.  Were you ever a stage proprietor yourself?—No. Then from your own knowledge you can state nothing as to the cost of carrying passengers by a stage coach?—No.

Could you, if you were to travel one hundred miles in ten hours, keep up that rate without damage to the machine?—Yes. I reckon the work would be done in eight hours, but the stoppages and one thing and another will take up two hours. 



the goodness to state your profession?—I am an Engineer.

How long have you been so?—It is twenty-five years since I began my studies; I have been much employed by inventors, to assist them in bringing forward new inventions of a mechanical nature, and in establishing them as practical businesses, when they have been sufficiently perfect to admit of so doing.

Have you turned your attention to the subject of propelling Stage Coaches or other Carriages by Steam Power on common roads, instead of by horses?—I have had occasion to prepare specifications of several such inventions for which Patents have been taken out, and have in consequence paid a close attention to that subject; I have also been consulted to settle the plans for the practical execution of Steam Coaches, but I have not directed or superintended any such execution myself. Of the specifications I have prepared, three have been followed up by building Coaches, which have actually travelled on common roads; viz. Mr. Gurney's. Mr. Hancock's, and Messrs. Heaton's; I believe those three are the only trials amongst many others which have had so much success as to have been persisted in to the present time. I have examined other Steam Coaches, but 