"The good of ancient times let others state;
I think it lucky I was born so late."
So wrote Sydney Smith, and it is a sentiment that all must concur in. The witty divine goes on to state:—
"A young man alive at this period hardly knows to what improvement of human life he has been introduced, and I would bring before his notice the following changes which have taken place in England since I first began to breathe in it the breath of life—a period amounting now to nearly seventy-three years. Gas was unknown. I groped about the streets of London in all but the utter darkness of a twinkling oil lamp, under the protection of watchmen in their grand climacteric, and exposed to every species of depredation and insult. I have been nine hours sailing from Dover to Calais before the invention of steam. It took me nine hours to go from Taunton to Bath before the invention of railroads, and I now go in six hours from London to Bath."
The witty Reverend then proceeds to refer to wooden pavements instead of stone ones, the new police instead of the superannuated "Charleys," the well-appointed cab (what would he have said to the hansom)? in lieu of the lumbering hackney coach, waterproof instead of primitive pulp hats; he then calls the attention of the reader to the introduction of gentlemen's braces, colchicum, calomel, and clubs. He might have added, the greatest boons of all, the telegraph, which "wafts a sigh from Indus to the Pole," or, unpoetically speaking, announces in an incredibly short space of time the arrival of a friend in India or America, nor would he have omitted chloroform, which saves hours of agony and torture, and which is an especial blessing to the humbler classes, who, when undergoing some painful operation, have not the comforts of the wealthier class about them.
CHAPTER III.
SLOW COACHES—FAST COACHES—"THE WONDER" AND "BLENHEIM"—PUBLIC DINNERS TO THE DRIVERS—PRESENTATION OF A SILVER CUP TO A DRIVER OF "THE BLENHEIM"—THE YOUNG OXONIANS FAIRLY TAKEN IN—NIMROD ON THE SHREWSBURY AND CHESTER "HIGHFLYER"—BANEFUL EFFECTS OF RAILWAYS ON THE ROAD—"THE DESERTED VILLAGE"—WONDERFUL FEAT OF LOCOMOTION.