352 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



placed between his fingers, which was done when he 

 took them from his box-passenger, after the last, 

 the fatal, brandy and water. The natural but very 

 embarrassing consequence was, that when Humpy 

 suddenly discovered that he was too near the fence, 

 he pulled the wrong rein, and there they were — on their 

 backs in the road. 



A more serious accident than this, inasmuch as one of 

 the unfortunate passengers was killed, happened to the 

 Holyhead Mail, a little further down the road, a mile 

 indeed on the London side of St. Albans. This arose 

 from the exciting but highly dangerous pastime of racing. 

 The Holyhead Mail, via Shrewsbury, attempted to pass 

 the Chester Mail by galloping furiously by on the 

 wrong side of the road. The coachman of the Chester 

 Mail resented the indignity, and pulled his leaders 

 across his rival's — a heap of stones conveniently placed 

 by the roadside did the rest of the business, and in a 

 moment converted two spick-and-span turn-outs, full 

 of passengers more or less alive and alarmed, into a mass 

 of struggling horseflesh, splintered wood and groaning 

 wounded. The inquest on the victim of this rivalry 

 amone coachmen was held at the Peahen Inn in St. 

 Albans, and a verdict of manslaughter was returned 

 against both artists. Abundant subsequent opportunity 

 was afforded them of meditating on their sins, for they 

 were kept in irons in St. Albans for six months before 

 they were tried at Hertford — in which town they enjoyed 

 a further twelve months' imprisonment in the county gaol. 



A snow effect is the next coaching incident to be 

 chronicled in this neighbourhood of St. Albans, richer 

 surely in its agreeably diversified crop of casualties than 

 any other place in England. The North-Western 

 coaches at all events seem to have got the full benefit of 

 the historic snow-storm of 1836. This visitation lasted 

 the best part of a week and has never been equalled in 

 Eneland before or since. The drifts in some hollows 

 were said to be twenty feet deep — which caused some 



