Mail coaches from London to the large provincial towns began to run in 1784. Their speed averaged about six miles an hour. By the end of the eighteenth century the journey to Bath—ninety miles, now completed by train in a couple of hours at a cost of nine shillings—was accomplished in seventeen hours, the fare with meals being £4, 9s. 6d. Nineteen mail-coaches left every night at seven or half-past seven, passengers paying fourpence a mile. One of the largest hostelries of the Metropolis, the “George and Blue Boar,” in Holborn, sent out as many as eighty and ninety coaches a day. As each one approached, or set out, from a stage, the guard blew a blast on his horn, and by the different calls, the stable-boys knew what coach was coming, and which horses would be wanted.
The Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.) encouraged dreadful extravagance in carriages. His favourite vehicle was in rose colour. Another appearing in Hyde Park at that time was lined with looking-glass, the horses were decorated with ribbons to match the colour of the carriage, and everything was made as gorgeous as possible. During the season, which then lasted from December to the end of May, the Park was full of gay equipages, painted every colour of the rainbow, and their panels bore representations of allegories and mythological subjects. Every person of importance was attended by numerous flunkeys, the coachman was a very grand display, with a periwig, a three-cornered hat laced with gold, and a capacious coat with flounces and fur-trimmings to the cape, a costume which added to that domestic’s vanity and assurance in no small degree, as he whipped up his four or six horses.
The phaeton with four horses superseded the curricle, and was considered the smart thing by Society.
A remnant of these painted vehicles may be seen to-day in Sicily, and on sledges in Norway, otherwise decorations on the panels of carriages have quite gone out of fashion. The Sicilian cart is still a marvel, and often depicts such scenes as hell, with Satan burning in a cauldron, or a martyr flayed alive at the stake; Greek soldiers before Troy; a king on his throne with Templars standing near him; Æneas landing in Sicily; the Virgin and Child; or scenes from the life of King Roger.
As for the roads in England, their condition was still execrable. Before macadam was introduced, nothing more was done towards repairing the surface than setting down enormous stones to be crushed by passing wheels, but as they were not set close, the wheels went bumping into the mud between, while the force of the jolt pushed the stones out of position, and matters became worse and worse. The streets of London were in such an ill-kept condition that people wanted their boots cleaned several times a day, and thus shoeblacks became an important factor in London life.
Before the making of turnpike roads, waggons had been the usual means of conveyance, and “flying coaches,” as they were at first called, were considered a great improvement. However, fares were high, and even after the introduction of public coaches many people who were not able to afford them still travelled by the slow-going waggon.
Here is an account of such a journey from London to Greenwich:
“We were twenty-four inside and nine without. It was my lot to sit in the middle with a lusty woman on one side and thin man on the other. ‘Open the windows,’ said the former, and she had a child on her lap whose hands were besmeared with gingerbread. ‘It can’t be opened,’ said a little prim coxcomb, ‘or I shall catch cold.’ ‘But I say it shall, sir,’ said a butcher who sat opposite, and the butcher opened it, but as he stood or rather bent forward to do this, the caravan came into a rut, and the butcher’s head, by the suddenness of the jolt, came into contact with that of the woman who sat next to me, and made her nose bleed. He begged her pardon, and she gave him a slap in the face that sounded through the whole caravan. Two sailors that were seated near the helm of the machine, ordered the driver to cast anchor at the next public-house. He did so, and the woman next me called for a pint of ale, which she offered to me, after she had emptied about a half of it, observing, ‘that as how she loved ale mightily.’ I could not drink, at which she took offence.... A violent dispute arose between the two stout-looking men, the one a recruiting sergeant, the other a gentleman’s coachman, about the Rights of Man. Another dispute afterwards was about politics, which was carried on with such warmth as to draw the attention of the company to the head of the caravan, where the combatants sat wedged together like two pounds of Epping butter, whilst a child constantly roared on the other side, and the mother abused the two politicians for frightening her babe. The heat was now so great that all the windows were opened, and with the fresh air entered clouds of dust, for the body of the machine is but a few inches from the surface of the road.”