Few phenomena, perhaps, demonstrate the gulf between rich and poor in early nineteeth-century Exeter as clearly as does the phenomenon of the Sedan chair. The rich of the city were literally the poor man's burden. The wealthy citizen could hire two chairmen to carry him or her through the muddy, soiled streets to any destination in the city, to wait for him and to carry him home again. The old fare had been sixpence to any address within the city-walls at any time of day or night but by January 1805 the cost of a chair had doubled, in some cases quadrupled, and the system had become more flexible. The tariff, however, lacked regularity. The Exeter Flying Post proposed a system curiously similar to the taxi fares of today:
"It is therefore recommended....that the single fare be rated at 400 yards and be charged sixpence, from that to 600 yards ninepence - 800 yards one shilling, and so on, adding threepence for every 200 yards: - that the charge for waiting be threepence for each quarter of an hour - and that if a chair be ordered after twelve o'clock, that the fare be increased one degree; that is to say, a sixpenny fare to be increased to ninepence; a ninepenny fare to a shilling, that of a shilling to fifteen pence, and so in proportion."
I find it hard to imagine these chairmen scuttling about the streets of Exeter perhaps counting their paces. I gain the impression there were a lot of them. Nothing is said in the Flying Post's scheme about the weight of the passengers. One would expect the fat citizens to pay more than the thin. The physical strain of carrying the chairs and their occupants must have been grievous. I wonder how you 'hailed' a Sedan chair. Did you stand at your door until one came by? Did you send your servant out to find a muscular brace of chairmen?
Source: The Exeter Flying Post, 10th January,1805.
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