228 THE BRIGHTON ROAD 



to suppose, a ticket taken at An sty " clearing ' the 

 remaining distance, through three other gates, to 

 Brighton. But it was necessary for the traveller to 

 know his way about, and, if he were going through, to 

 ask for a ticket to clear to Brighton ; else the pikeman 

 would issue a ticket, which cost just as much, to the 

 next gate only, when another payment would be 

 demanded. These were " tricks upon travellers ' 

 familiar to every road, and they earned the pikemen, 

 as a class, a very unenviable reputation. 



It was here, in the great Christmas Eve snowstorm 

 of 1836, that the London mail was snowed up. Its 

 adventures illustrate the uncertainty of travelling the 

 roads. 



In those days you took your seat on your particular 

 fancy in coaches, and paid your sixteen-shilling fare 

 from London to Brighton, or vice versa, trusting (yet 

 with heaviness of heart) in Providence to bring you 

 to a happy issue from all the many dangers and 

 discomforts of travelling. Occasionally it was brought 

 home, by storm and flood, to those learned enough to 

 know it, that " travelling " derived originally from 

 ' travail," and the discomforts of leaving one's own 

 fireside in the winter are emphasized and underscored 

 in the particulars of what befell at Stonepound in 

 the great snowstorm of December 24th, 1836 — a storm 

 that paralysed communications throughout the king- 

 dom. 



" The Brighton up-mail of Sunday had travelled 

 about eight miles from that town, when it fell into a 

 drift of snow, from which it was impossible to extricate 

 it without assistance. The guard immediately set off 

 to obtain all necessary aid, but when he returned no 

 trace whatever could be found, either of the coach, 

 coachman or passengers, three in number. After 

 much difncultv the coach was found, but could not 

 be extricated from the hollow into which it had got. 

 The guard did not reach London until seven o'clock 

 on Tuesday night, having been obliged to travel with 

 the bags on horseback, and in many instances to leave 



