156 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



About six other coaches passed up to London and down 

 during the day, on an average carrying two passengers 

 each. This would make about twenty-four passengers 

 in and out of the town daily except on Sundays, when 

 the coaches did not run. At the present time, the 

 London and North- Western Railway average, in and out, 

 450, the Great Western 350, and the little despised 

 Aylesbury and Buckingham 200 daily, making in all 

 1000 passengers who travel from and to the town every 

 day, Sundays included ! And we read of further facilities 

 being required ! How the goods and the ordinary supply 

 of food used to be carried to us now seems a wonder. 

 About four broad-wheeled waggons, each drawn by eight 

 powerful horses, passed through the town daily, and a 

 few carriers' carts went twice a week to and from 

 London : the branch of the Grand Junction Canal 

 brought most of the heavy traffic, and all the coal. The 

 town in 1837 contained about 4600 inhabitants, now 

 about 10,000. The surrounding villages and districts 

 remain about the same in population as then. With 

 regard to the coal supply, people can scarcely credit 

 the shifts the inhabitants had to endure before the open- 

 ing of railways. Many thousand tons were stacked in 

 reserve on the extensive coal wharf of the Grand Junc- 

 tion Canal in the month of September to make ready 

 for the winter : if the canal was frozen over, the supply 

 soon became exhausted, the price, ordinarily 305. per 

 ton, rose to 40^". and even more. The town and neigh- 

 bourhood before the canal was opened — 181 2 — must 

 in the winter have been in a deplorable condition. I 

 have heard my father say, that in the great frost which 



