PROCESSION OF MAILS. 217 



scarlet and gold, each proprietor vying with his opponent 

 in an endeavour to produce the most perfect turn-out. 

 Critics abounded, and the judges gave the awards un- 

 biassed by any predilections for the teams which passed 

 through their respective districts. The procession 

 started, and dense crowds of spectators thronged the 

 route from Westminster through the Strand, Fleet 

 Street, and Ludgate Hill, by the Old Bailey, to the 

 General Post Office, St. Martin's-le-Grand. Here the 

 mail-bags were loaded, and on such a special occasion 

 nearly every seat for passengers was filled, and off the 

 coaches started on their respective journeys. Well 

 might foreigners exclaim, with the thought of their own 

 lumbering diligences before them, that it was worth 

 travelling to England to see the completeness and style 

 with w^hich the public were conveyed from one part of 

 the kingdom to the other, and the celerity and despatch 

 with which the correspondence of the nation was 

 distributed. 



Great opposition was shown by the stage-coach 

 proprietors and post-masters to the innovation of the 

 iron horse ; prognostications were lavishly made of the 

 absolute impossibility of the railway competing in pace 

 and safety w^ith the old coach and yellow post-chaise ; 

 pamphlets threw doubt on George Stephenson's state- 

 ment that he could carry passengers at twenty miles an 

 hour, and every effort was made to prevent passengers 

 travelling by the new system. Messrs. Chaplin and 

 Home alone had the prescience to see that the " old 

 order changeth, yielding place to new," and when the 

 London and Birmingham Railway was near completion 



