COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



"FLYING MACHINE. 



" All those desirous to pass from London to Bath, or any other 

 Place on their Road, let them repair to the Bell Savage on 

 Ludgate Hill in London and the White Lion at Bath, at both 

 which places they may be received in a Stage Coach every 

 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, vi^hich performs the whole 

 journey in Three Days (if God permit), and sets forth at five 

 in the Morning. 



" Passengers to pay One Pound five Shillings each, who are 

 allowed to carry fourteen Pounds Weight — for all above to pay 

 three halfpence per Pound." 



Bill posting was in its infancy in the days of the 

 Restoration, but the above effort drew a crowd to the 

 Bell Savage even at five o'clock in the morning. This 

 crowd eyed the Flying Machine, drawn up in the inn 

 yard ready for its flight, with a wild surmise. With 

 a kindred expression they also eyed the six intrepid 

 passengers who had been received into it, and their 

 fourteen pounds of luggage to each man piled on 

 the roof — that roof on which no passenger dared 

 venture himself for fear of his neck. And the six inside 

 intrepid passengers turned upon the onlookers twelve 

 eyes estranged and sad. They were practised travellers 

 all of them, but even for practised travelling this was a 

 new departure. They had booked for Bath ; with a 

 proper regard for the proviso in the advertisement, they 

 had committed themselves to Providence ; but they did 

 not very well know whither they were going. They 

 knew however that they were going five-and-thirty 

 miles a day instead of twenty, over roads called so out 

 of courtesy, and the thought, now that they were seated, 

 gave them melancholy pause. They felt probably as 

 the passengers by the first railway train felt a century 

 and a half later. They cursed the curiosity which 

 pines for a new experience, and wished themselves on 

 the fixed earth again. And as they did so the huzzas of 

 the crowd and a supernatural jolting told them they 

 were off it. 



