lo THE BATH ROAD 



cramming and shoving and buttressing up an overgrown, putting, 

 greasy human being of the butcher or grazier breed ; the whole 

 machine straining and groaning under its cargo from the box to 

 the basket. By dint of incredible efforts and contrivances, the 

 carcase is at length weighed up to the door, where it has next 

 to struggle with various obstacles in the passage." 



The pictorial comraentaiy upon this text is ap- 

 pended, together witli a view representing passengers 

 refreshed by being overturned into a wayside pond. 



The first mail-coach that ever ran in Euo-land ran 

 between London and Bristol, aud set out on Monday, 

 August 2, 1784. Hitherto the letters had been con- 

 veyed by mounted post-boys, often provided with 

 but sorry hacks, and always open to attack at the 

 hands of any bad characters who might think it worth 

 their while to intercept the post-bags. This risk led 

 the more cautious persons, and those whose corre- 

 spondence was of particular importance, to despatch 

 their letters by the stage-coach, although the cost in 

 that case was 2-9. as against the ordinary postal 

 charge of only 4c/. for places between 80 and 120 

 miles distant. 



A clever and enterprising man resident at Bath had 

 noted these things. This was John Palmer, the pro- 

 prietor of the Bath Theatre. He not only noted them, 

 but devised a plan by which the post was rendered 

 swifter and more secure. The sta^e- coaches of that 

 time took thirty- eight hours to accomplish the journey 

 between London and Bath, and, although safer for 

 the carriage of correspondence than by post-boy, were 

 not so speedy. Palmer had frequently travelled the 

 roads, and he rightly conceived thirty-eight hours to 

 be too long a time to take for a journey of 106 miles. 



