COACHING DAYS AND WAYS 



best K.Q. iron, faggotted edgeways, well bedded in 

 the timbers ; and as for linchpins, we have not one 

 about the coach. We use the best patent boxes that 

 are manufactured. In short, sir, you are as safe in it 

 as if you were in your bed." "Bless me," exclaims the 

 old man, ** what improvements ! And the roads ! ! ! " 

 **They are at perfection, sir," says the proprietor. 

 ** No horse walks a yard in this coach between 

 London and Exeter — all trotting ground now." "A 

 little galloping ground, I fear," whispers the senior 

 to himself! "But who has efifected all this improve- 

 ment in your paving?" "An American of the name 

 of Macadam,"^ was the reply, "but coachmen 

 call him the Colossus of Roads. Great things have 

 likewise been done in cutting through hills and 

 altering the course of roads : and it is no uncommon 

 thing now-a-days to see four horses trotting away 

 merrily down hill on that very ground where they 

 formerly were seen walking up hill." 



*"And pray, my good sir, what sort of horses 

 may you have over the next stage?" "Oh, sir, no 



^ John Loudon Macadam was a Scotsman by birth. In 1770, when fourteen 

 years old, he was sent to the care of an uncle in New York, whence he did not 

 return till he was twenty-six years of age ; hence the mistake in describing him 

 as 'an American.' 



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