better sort of people in visits, or if sick or infirmed" (Celia Fiennes). In the 17th and 18th centuries, the chairs stood in the main hall of a well-appointed city residence, where a lady could enter and be carried to her destination without setting foot in a filthy street. The neoclassical sedan chair made for Queen Charlotte (Queen Consort from 1761 to 1818) remains at Buckingham Palace. By the mid-17th century, sedans for hire had become a common mode of transportation. London had "chairs" available for hire in 1634, each assigned a number and the chairmen licensed because the operation was a monopoly of a courtier of King Charles I. Sedan chairs could pass in streets too narrow for a carriage, helping to alleviate the crush of coaches in London streets, an early instance of traffic congestion. A similar system later operated in Scotland. In 1738 a fare system was established for Scottish sedans, and the regulations covering chairmen in Bath are reminiscent of the modern Taxi Commission's rules. A trip within a city cost six pence and a day's rental was four shillings. A sedan was even used as an ambulance in Scotland's Royal Infirmary. Chairmen moved at a good clip. In Bath they had the right-of-way: pedestrians hearing "By your leave" behind them knew to flatten themselves against walls or railings as the chairmen hustled through. There were often disastrous accidents, upset chairs, and broken glass-paned windows. The end of a tradition In Great Britain, in the early 19th century, the public sedan chair began to fall out of use, perhaps because streets were better paved or perhaps because of the rise of the more comfortable, companionable and affordable hackney carriage. In Glasgow, the decline of the sedan chair is illustrated by licensing records which show twenty-seven sedan chairs in 1800, eighteen in 1817, and ten in 1828. During that same period the number of registered hackney carriages in Glasgow rose to one hundred and fifty. In the Americas The wealthy are recorded to have used sedan chairs in the cities of colonial America and the early period of the United States. In 1787, Benjamin Franklin, at the time 81 years old, gouty, and in generally declining health, is noted to have travelled to meetings of the United States Constitutional Convention in a sedan chair carried by four prisoners. Colonial practice In various colonies, litters of various types