BEARING REINS, FAST COACHES, AND UNCH-PINS. 237 



When on the subject of mails and night-work, I must 

 make one remark : — The proprietors who horse them 

 are not sufficiently attentive to the state of the harness 

 011 the ground worked by night, whereas, above all other, 

 it should be the best. If anything breaks by daylight, 

 it is instantly observed, but not so in the night, for lamp- 

 light is treacherous and uncertain. I do not wish to do 

 so, but I could name two mails that have lately been 

 very frequent iy upset in consequence of the rottenness 

 of their night harness. Perhaps the proprietors — one of 

 whom I know reads the ' Sporting Magazine ' — may take 

 notice of this hint. Their duty to the public requires 

 that they should. They receive handsome fares for 

 their passengers, and it is but right that they should 

 take every possible care of their living cargo. 



As it is my intention to touch on every part of the 

 extensive system now adopted on our roads, which has 

 attained an excellence far beyond our most sanguine 

 expectation, I must divide my subject into heads, and 

 treat of each separately. 



Fast Coaches. — Had our present expedition on the 

 road been proposed to our ancestors, they would have 

 considered it as the dream of a lunatic. This, however, 

 is self-evident : by the improvement in the structure of 

 coaches, added to the capital state of the roads, four 

 inside, and ten outside passengers, with their luggage, 

 are conveyed at the rate of ten miles an hour, with more 

 ease to themselves, and considerably less punishment to 

 the horses that draw them, than was formerly the case 



