OF FARRIERY. 



365 



thirty, fifty, yea a hundred proper serving 

 men, were transformed, he says, into two or 

 three animals. The old wifical thinkers of that 

 day were as much concerned about the fate 

 of the discharged men-servants, as the twad- 

 dlers of the present are distressed about the 

 needless Horses. It is further very amusing 

 to find Taylor, in his antipathy to coaches, 

 complaining that their drivers were all of them 

 hard drinkers. 



Till 1564, the only mode of travelling, 

 equivalent to that by stage-coaches and loco- 

 motive carriages in the present day, was by 

 the strings of Horses led by the carriers. It 

 is these caravans that FalstafT and his friends 

 ari described by Shakspeare as attacking at 



G ■ .1. 



About the year just mentioned, the long 

 waggon for goods and passengers came into 

 use — the waggon of Roderick Random and 

 Strap, and which still, we believe, in some 

 degree continues to flourish, notwithstanding 

 all the more lively vehicles that have recently 

 sprung up. 



Stage-coaches originated less than a century 

 later, and were for a long time confined to the 

 great lines of road throughout England. One 

 for the short distance between Edinburgh and 

 Leith was started in 1660 ; but there were 

 none for distances to which the term stages 

 could be applied till 1678. That from London 

 to Oxford in the reign of Charles II., required 

 two days, the space being fifty-eight miles. 

 That to Exeter (168^ miles) required four 

 days. 



In 1703, when Prince George of Denmark 

 went from Windsor to Petworth to meet 

 Charles III. of Spain, the distance being about 

 forty miles, he required fourteen hours for the 

 jonniey, the last nine miles taking six. The 



person who records this fact, says that the long 

 time was the more surprising, as, except when 

 overturned, oi when stuck fast in the mire, 

 his royal highness made no stop during the 

 journey. 



In 1742, stage-coaches must have been 

 more numerous in England than in Charles 

 the Second's time ; but it does not appear that 

 they moved any faster. The journey from 

 London to Birmingham (116 miles) then occu- 

 pied nearly three days, as appears from the 

 following advertisement : 



"The Litchfield and Birminoham stag^e- 

 coach set out this morning (Monday, April 12, 

 1742), from the Rose Inn, Holborn Bridge, 

 London, and will be at the Angel, and the 

 Hen and Chickens, in the High Town, Bir- 

 mingham, on Wednesday next, to dinner ; and 

 goes the same afternoon to Litchfield. It re- 

 turns to Birmingham on Thursday morning to 

 breakfast, and gets to London on Saturday 

 night, and so will continue every week re- 

 gularly, with a good coach and able horses." 



Thus the whole week was occupied in a 

 journey to and from Litchfield by Birmingham, 

 an entire space of probably not more than two 

 hundred and forty miles — that is, at an average 

 of forty miles a-day. 



Of the stage-coach journey to Bath about 

 1748, we learn some particulars from Smollett's 

 celebrated novel. Mr. Random enters the 

 coach before day-light. It proceeds. A 

 highwayman attacks it before breakfast, and 

 is repulsed by the gallantry of our hero. Strap 

 meanwhile accompanies the coach on horse- 

 back. A night is spent on the road, and the 

 journey is finished next day, apparently 

 towards evening — one hundred and eight 

 miles. 



At that time thei'e was no reo^nlar stage- 

 4 z 



