96 History of Inland Transport 



Business and Trade, and yet full of Gentry, of Mirth, and of 

 Good Company." King's Lynn, the head-quarters of so 

 important a shipping business in those days, he found 

 " abounding in very good company," while of York he writes : 

 " There is abundance of good Company here, and abundance 

 of good Families live here, for the sake of the good Company 

 and cheap living ; a Man converses here with all the World as 

 effectually as at London ; the Keeping up of Assemblies among 

 the younger Gentry was first set up here, a thing other Writers 

 recommend mightily as the Character of a good Country and 

 of a Pleasant Place." 



The general effect, from a social standpoint, of the com- 

 bination of better roads and better coaches is well told In an 

 essay " On the Country Manners of the Present Age," pub- 

 lished in the " Annual Register " for 1761. The writer has 

 much to say that is of interest from the point of view of the 

 present work, but the following extracts must suffice : 



" It is scarce half a century since the inhabitants of distant 

 counties were regarded as a species almost as different from 

 those of the Metropolis as the natives of the Cape of Good 

 Hope. . . . Formerly a journey into the country was con- 

 sidered almost as great an undertaking as a voyage to the 

 Indies. The old family coach was sure to be stowed with all 

 sorts of luggage and provisions ; and perhaps in the course 

 of the journey a whole village together with their teams, 

 were called in to dig the heavy vehicle out of the clay, and to 

 drag it to the next place of wretched accommodation which 

 the road afforded. Thus they travelled like the caravan over 

 the deserts of Arabia, with every disagreeable circumstance of 

 tediousness and inconvenience. But now the amendments of 

 the roads with the many other improvements of travelling 

 have in a manner opened a new communication between the 

 several parts of our island. . . . Stage-coaches, machines, flys 

 and post chaises are ready to transport passengers to and fro, 

 between the metropolis and the most distant parts of the 

 Kingdom. The lover now can almost literally annihilate time 

 and space, and be with his mistress before she dreams of his 

 arrival. In short the manners, fashions, amusements, vices 

 and follies of the metropolis now make their way to the 

 remotest corners of the land as readily and speedily, along 

 the turnpike road, as, of old, Milton's Sin and Death, by means 



