BRITISH SPORT PAST AND PRESENT 



out eight horses from Spencer's, Marsden's, and ^Vhite's. 

 Lords Barrymore and Cranley are chosen as the umpires. The 

 horses selected are only to be those which have not been broken 

 in. The friend of each charioteer is to pick the horses alter- 

 nately until the number agreed on is selected. The parties are 

 then to mount the box and proceed to decide the wager. The 

 bettings already are said to be considerable. Neither the 

 scene of action nor the day when the contest is to take place 

 are yet determined on. Mr. Buxton is said to be so certain of 

 success that he has offered to double the bet.' 



Though the law of 1820 made racing a criminal offence, the 

 practice was one which could not be wholly put down, and on 

 May-day the law was set at naught by popular consent, rival 

 coaches on that day racing one another without disguise : 

 the May-day race became an institution of the road, and seems 

 to have been winked at by the authorities. Some wonderful 

 records were made in these contests on the macadam. Thus, 

 on 1st May 1830, the Independent Tally-ho ran from London 

 to Birmingham, 109 miles, in 7 hours 39 minutes. It was 

 not rare for a coach to perform its journey at a rate of 

 fifteen miles an hour on May-day. We may compare this with 

 the time made in the Leicester-Nottingham race of 1808 

 mentioned on p. 128. 



It is seventy years since the carriage of the mails was 

 transferred from coach to railway train, and there are yet 

 living men who can remember the last journeys of the mail- 

 coaches, some carrying little flags at half-mast, some displaying 

 a miniature coffin, emblematic of the death of a great institu- 

 tion. Yet the mail-coach survived until a much later date 

 in some districts, where the line was slow to penetrate. Mr. 

 S. A. Kinglake, in Baily's Magazine of 1906, gave an account 

 of the Oxford and Cheltenham coach, which only began to 

 carry the mails in 1848, and made its last trip in 1862, when 

 the opening of a new branch line ousted this lingerer on the 

 roads. 



The interregnum between the last of the old coaches and 



146 



