The Merry Past 



As late as 1814, when Jack Richardson i&rst went on 

 the Glasgow Mail, the depth of the ruts and wheel- 

 tracks was such as to defy any team to lift their coach 

 out without assistance, when once it was fairly let in. 

 The plan then adopted when two carriages met in 

 the same track was for a joint effort to be made to 

 fill up the rut in front of one of them with large 

 stones, by which an inclined plane was constructed 

 to lift it from out the slough. And yet they kept time 

 in those days ! 



All this had been changed by 1838, when the main 

 coach roads rivalled the smoothness of a billiard 

 table. 



The change produced by the introduction of rail- 

 ways was bitterly lamented by old-fashioned people, 

 who complained that the coach offices were deserted, 

 whilst an omnibus to the railway station alone supplied 

 the place of the gallant teams of high-bred horses 

 which formerly were seen issuing forth at all hours 

 of the day and night, with well-appointed coaches to 

 all parts of the Kingdom. 



The days of travelling for pleasure appeared to be 

 about to disappear for ever — the glories of the road 

 to vanish in a puff of smoke. 



For some years before railways had seriously begun 

 to supersede coaches, " posting " had dwindled to the 

 shadow of what it once was. As late as 1839, it is true, 

 family men still travelled with post-horses to their 

 own carriages ; and now and then one encountered a 

 solitary individual in a britschka, rolling along with a 

 cigar in his cheek for company's sake : but such sights 



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