“Waggons or Carts from Tunbridge Wells to Brighton, Eastbourne, &c., occasionally.”
Now Tunbridge is only thirty-six miles from London, and yet it took over twenty-four hours to reach.
Of course, those who had carriages of their own, or hired them, could go “post,” i.e., have fresh horses at certain recognized stations, leaving the tired ones behind them. This was of course travelling luxuriously, and people had to pay for it. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, there had been, well, not a famine, but a great scarcity of corn, and oats naturally rose, so much so that the postmasters had to raise their price, generally to 1s. 2d. per horse per mile, a price which seems to have obtained until the latter part of 1801, when among the advertisements of the Morning Post, September 23rd, I find, “Four Swans, Waltham Cross. Dean Wostenholme begs leave most respectfully to return thanks to the Noblemen and Gentlemen who have done him the honour to use his house, and to inform them that he has lowered the price of Posting to One Shilling per mile,” &c.
And there was, of course, the convenient hackney coach, which was generally the cast-off and used up carriage of some gentleman, whose arms, even, adorned the panels, a practice (the bearing of arms) which still obtains in our cabs. The fares were not extravagant, except in view of the different values of money. Every distance not exceeding one mile 1s., not exceeding one mile and a half, 1s. 6d., not exceeding two miles 2s., and so on. There were many other clauses, as to payment, waiting, radius, &c., but they are uninteresting.
A little book[37] says: “The hackney coaches in London were formerly limited to 1,000; but, by an Act of Parliament, the number is increased. Hackney coachmen are, in general, depraved characters, and several of them have been convicted as receivers of stolen goods,” and it goes on to suggest their being licensed.
The old sedan chair was not obsolete, but was extensively used to take ladies to evening parties; and, as perhaps we may never again meet with a table of the chairmen’s charges, I had better take it:
RATES OF CHAIRMEN.[38]
| s. | d. | |
| For the first hour, if paid by an hour | 1 | 6 |
| For every hour afterwards | 0 | 6 |
| For any distance not exceeding one mile | 1 | 0 |
| For one mile to one mile and a half | 1 | 6 |
| For every half mile afterwards | 0 | 6 |
In fact, their fares were almost identical with those of the hackney coachmen, and offending chairmen were subject to the same penalties.
The roads were kept up by means of turnpikes, exemption from payment of which was very rare; royalty, the mails, military officers, &c., on duty, and a few more, were all.