By a memorandum at the General Post-Office, it appears that in February, 1831, the Rev. W. C. Fenton, of Doncaster, made a suggestion that postilions should be substituted for the coachmen. The suggestion was rejected, as it was considered that the change of postilions would necessarily be much more frequent than the change of coachmen, and therefore the chances of delays would be greatly multiplied. It was also thought that, were such a mode of driving adopted, it would be the means of raising the fares, and the mails would again require support. Many of the coachmen drove from forty to fifty miles without a change. The Postmaster-General, Duke of Richmond, considered the horses had enough to do without carrying additional weight.
The horses would not only have had the weight of an extra man to share among them, but they would have had to carry both men in a way best calculated to distress them. The easiest way for a horse to move a weight is by his draught, the worst when placed upon his back.
Then again there was the difficulty of who was to pay the postilions. They must have been changed at every stage, and I should think the passengers, although in those days pretty well accustomed to giving fees of one sort or another, would have objected to being kicked by two postboys at the end of every stage.
I can fancy I hear one of the uninitiated exclaim, "I should think they would object to such treatment as that at any time," but, in the language of the road, the word kicking had no brutal signification attached to it—it only meant asking the passengers for their fees, and the word shelling was often used to express the same process in less objectionable language. The word was understood something in the way that an Irishman uses the word kilt, which the following anecdote will explain:—
An English gentleman had rented some shooting in Ireland, and had gone over to enjoy the sport. On the morning after his arrival, having engaged a lot of boys to beat for him, he started off to look for game, but before he had gone very far, after firing a shot, he heard a great commotion and chatter among the boys. Thereupon he called out to them to ask if anything was the matter, to which the answer he received was, "Nothing your 'anour,' only you've kilt a boy." I need hardly say, that, being a stranger to the country, he was very much alarmed till he reached the spot where the boys were assembled, when he discovered, to his infinite relief, that the word "kilt" conveyed no mortal signification in that country.
I will venture to give a few more instances of the propositions made to the Postmaster-General. Some were certainly ingenious, but he very wisely could not be induced to give up a system which had been well proved, for what at the best, and however clever in itself, was untried.
On September 14th, 1816, Mr. Peter M'Kenzie of Paddington offered to construct a steam engine to run on rails at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. He asserted that the mountains of Wales or any other part of the United Kingdom would not impede its velocity. To enable him to build a small model he asked that a hundred and fifty or two hundred pounds might be advanced to him. As may be supposed this was refused him, and the plan was abandoned. This gentleman also claimed that in 1802 the idea of printing newspapers by steam first originated with him.
Mr. John England, writing from Aberdeen in August, 1820, wants the department to adopt a travelling carriage or machine, which was impelled by means of the expansion and contraction of compound fluids. The machine was stated to weigh about 90 lbs. The plan was not entertained. Again, in the year 1832 the same person submitted an improved machine worked on the same principle, but, as may be imagined, it met with no better result than the first.
In the next suggestion we appear to be approaching the present railway system, but I should suppose that he intended laying his rails by the side of the turnpike roads.
Mr. Thomas Gray, writing from Brussels in November, 1821, suggests steam coaches on iron rails. In support of it, he stated that the journey to Edinburgh would be done in half the time taken by the mail coaches, and that the expense of laying the iron rails would be more than covered by the extra passengers that could be carried in the additional coaches which could be run.