164 COACHING. 



the hazard of bis life (the train going at tlie 

 rate of forty miles an hour at the time), got 

 out and clambered on the roof, and by great 

 exertions removed the luggage from the roof, 

 and thereby saved the greater part ; but the 

 brisk current of air created by the rapid speed 

 at which the coach was progressing rendered 

 all attempts to extinguish the flame unavail- 

 able until the roof was destroyed, when, the 

 embers falling inside, the guard, who had come 

 to the coachman's assistance, succeeded in putting 

 out the fire. 



In 1832 Mr. Babbage, in his work on the 

 " Economy of Manufactures," suggested a new 

 plan of conveying the mail. The immense 

 revenue of the Post Office would afford means 

 of speedier conveyance. The letter-bags do 

 not ordinarily weigh a hundred pounds, and 

 were then conveyed in bulky machines of 

 many thousand times the weight, drawn by 

 four horses, and delayed by passengers. Mr. 

 Babbage proposed the erection of pillars along 

 each line of road, these pillars to be connected 

 by inclined wires or iron rods, along which the 

 letters inclosed in cylinders attached to the rods 

 by rings are to shde; persons stationed on these 

 columns were to forward the cylinders from 



