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A stagecoach is a type of four-wheeled enclosed passenger and/or mail coach, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, widely used before the introduction of railway transport. Familiar images of the stagecoach are that of a Royal Mail coach passing through a turnpike gate, a Dickensian passenger coach covered in snow pulling up at a coaching inn, a highwayman demanding a coach to "stand and deliver", and a coach being chased by American Indians in a Western movie. The stagecoach was first developed in the British Isles during the 1500s, and only died out in the early 1900s in the United States. Coaching inns opened up throughout Europe to accommodate stagecoach passengers. Shakespeare's first plays were staged at coaching inns such as The George Inn, Southwark. The Royal Mail stagecoach hastened the improvement of the road system in the British Isles through the turnpike trust system. And the stagecoach was vital in the colonization of North America.