What would the writer of the above have thought if he had lived to travel by what is termed the "Flying Dutchman," which now runs from London to Plymouth in six hours and a quarter, and which, we understand, will shortly accomplish seventy miles an hour.
To resume—or, as the gentlemanly gang under Captain Macheath say, "Let us take the road" as it was at the period above mentioned.
The Edinburgh Mail ran the distance (four hundred miles) in forty hours, stoppages included. The Exeter day-coach, the "Herald," performed her journey of one hundred and seventy-three miles in twenty hours; Stevenson's Brighton "Age" kept its time to the minute; in short, from London to Cheltenham, Gloucester, Worcester, Birmingham, Norwich, Bath, Bristol, Southampton, Oxford, Cambridge, was little more than a pleasant Summer day's drive.
In order to accomplish the above fast journey two important considerations were required; first, that the horses should not be overworked, and, secondly, that they should be well fed. Horses have increased greatly in price since the period I write of, and a team which would have cost a hundred guineas in 1832 could not now be had for two hundred and fifty guineas. The cost of coaches of the best materials varied from one hundred and forty pounds to one hundred and sixty pounds; generally speaking, they were hired from the maker at from twopence half-penny to threepence per mile.
CHAPTER IV.
JOURNEY TO BATH IN THE PALMY DAYS OF COACHING—A DRIVING GIOVANNI—"PARSON DENNIS"—CONTRAST TO THE ABOVE—TENNANT'S DESCRIPTION—THE OLD BRIGHTON ROAD—MODERN IMPROVEMENTS—A SQUIRE OF 1638.