262 ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



on a coach-box that was ever yet heard of was, that 

 modern Hercules, the celebrated Captain Barclay of 

 Urie, driving the mail all the way from London to Edin- 

 burgh — four hundred miles. Thorooood's work on the 

 Norwich 'Times,' already recorded, is a wonderful sample 

 of perseverance and industry — having driven his coach 

 tzvo years without missing one journey, 1 12 miles a day. 



There is a very respectable and scientific coachman 

 in my own neighbourhood who deserves notice, inasmuch 

 as he only wants tzvo years of completing /lis half century 

 on the road, and he is now as equal to his work as ever 

 he was. His name is Mountain Shaw, a nephew of the 

 coach-proprietor of that name ; and he drives Monk's 

 Basinostoke coach to London one day, and down the 

 next. He has an uncommonly neat house in Basing- 

 stoke, where he is much respected ; and I am told he is 

 always to be found, on his London evenings, at a certain 

 house near his yard, in the City, dressed in his silk 

 stockings and white waistcoat, enjoying himself after the 

 business of the day, and amusing his friends with his 

 agreeable discourse. Shaw is very well known to several 

 of the gentlemen dragsmen, and I humbly suggest that 

 when he completes his half century on the road, they 

 give him a jubilee dinner, in London, at which myself 

 and several of my friends will be most happy to attend. 

 Fifty years' faithful service to the public is entitled to 

 some compliment — the nature of the service having little 

 to do with it. As the Poet says : 



Honour and shame from no condition rise ; 

 Act well your part — there all the honour lies. 



