It only remains to notice, in conclusion, the annual procession of mail-coaches on the king's birthday, which contemporaries assure us was a gay and lively sight. One writer in the early part of the century goes so far as to say that the cavalcade of mail-coaches was "a far more agreeable and interesting sight to the eye and the mind than the gaud and glitter of the Lord Mayor's show," because the former "made you reflect on the advantages derived to trade and commerce and social intercourse by this magnificent establishment" (the Post-Office). Hone, in his Every-day Book, writing of 1822, tells us that George IV., who was born on the 12th of August, changed the annual celebration of his birthday to St. George's-day, April 23d. "According to custom," says he, "the mail-coaches went in procession from Millbank to Lombard Street. About twelve o'clock, the horses belonging to the different mails with entire new harness, and the postmen and postboys on horseback arrayed in their new scarlet coats and jackets, proceed from Lombard Street to Millbank and there dine; from thence, the procession being re-arranged, begins to march about five o'clock in the afternoon, headed by the general post letter-carriers on horseback. The coaches follow them, filled with the wives and children, friends and relations, of the guards or coachmen; while the postboys sounding their bugles and cracking their whips bring up the rear. From the commencement of the procession, the bells of the different churches ring out merrily and continue their rejoicing peals till it arrives at the Post-Office again, from whence the mails depart for different parts of the kingdom." Great numbers assembled to witness the cavalcade as it passed through the principal streets of the metropolis. The appearance of the coachmen and guards, got up to every advantage, and each with a large bouquet of flowers in his scarlet uniform, was of course greatly heightened by the brilliancy of the newly-painted coach, emblazoned with the royal arms.
FOOTNOTES:
[51] No one who has read Roderick Random can forget the novelist's description of his hero's ride from Scotland to London. As it is generally believed to be a veritable account of a journey which Smollett himself made about the middle of the last century, the reader may be of opinion that the improvement here spoken of was not so great as it might have been. Roderick, however, travelled in the "stage-waggon" of the period. He and his faithful friend Strap having observed one of these waggons a quarter of a mile before them, speedily overtook it, and, ascending by means of the usual ladder, "tumbled into the straw under the darkness of the tilt," amidst four passengers, two gentlemen and two ladies. When they arrived at the first inn Captain Weazel desired a room for himself and his lady, "with a separate supper;" but the impartial innkeeper replied he "had prepared victuals for the passengers in the waggon, without respect of persons." Strap walked by the side of the waggon, changing places with his master when Roderick was disposed to walk. The mistakes, the quarrels, and the mirth of the passengers, are told by the novelist with a vivacity and humour which would have been admirable but for their coarseness. After five days' rumbling in the straw, the passengers get quite reconciled to each other; "nothing remarkable happened during the remaining part of our journey, which continued six or seven days longer."
There were also a few bad roads. Arthur Young, in his famous Tour in the North of England, has described a Lancashire turnpike-road of about the same period in the following vigorous phraseology:—"I know not in the whole range of language terms sufficiently expressive to describe this infernal road. To look over a map and perceive that it is a principal road, one would naturally conclude it to be at least decent; but let me most seriously caution all travellers who may purpose to travel this terrible country to avoid it as they would the devil, for a thousand to one they will break their necks or their limbs by over-throws or breakings-down. They will here meet with ruts which actually measured four feet deep and floating with mud, and this only from a wet summer; what, therefore, must it be after a winter? The only mending which it in places receives is the tumbling in some loose stones, which serve no other purpose but jolting a carriage in the most intolerable manner. These are not merely opinions, but facts, for I actually passed three carts broken down in these eighteen miles of execrable memory." The road in question was that between Wigan and Preston, then a regular post-road and now on the trunk line of mail conveyance into Scotland.
[52] Chambers' Traditions of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 168.
[53] Baines's History of Lancashire, p. 83.
[54] The Bath post was no exception. The letters which left London at two o'clock on Monday morning did not reach Worcester, Norwich, or Birmingham till the Wednesday, Exeter not till Thursday, and Glasgow and Edinburgh for about a week.
[55] Vide Report of the Committee of House of Commons in 1797, on "Mr. Palmer's Agreement for the Reform and Improvement of the Post-Office and its Revenue," p. 115.
[56] Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the state of the Public Offices in 1788.
[57] Post-Office robberies had been exceedingly numerous within a few years of the change which Palmer succeeded in inaugurating. Though one prosecution for a single robbery cost the authorities no less a sum than 4,000l., yet they regarded the occurrences as unavoidable and simply matters of course.