End of the Coaching Era 327 



to contribute very much to the benefit of the country at 

 large it is not easy to discover. Economy of time in an in- 

 dustrious country is unquestionably of immense importance, 

 but after the means of moving at the rate of ten miles an 

 hour is universally established there seems to be no very 

 great advantage to be derived from going faster." 



It is true that an acceleration had been effected in the 

 rates of speed attainable on improved roads, under the stimulus 

 of mail and " flying " coaches. But these results had only 

 been secured with consequences for the unfortunate horses 

 which no one possessed of a spark of humanity could fail to 

 deplore. Several coach proprietors, each owning between 

 300 and 400 horses, informed a House of Commons Select 

 Committee in 1819 that those of their horses which worked 

 within fifty miles of London lasted only three or four years, 

 in which period the entire stock had to be renewed. Mr Home, 

 of Charing Cross, who kept 400 horses, said he bought 150 

 every year. On some roads, it was affirmed, the mortality 

 of the horses, due in part to the bad state of the roads and 

 in part to the accelerated speed, was so great that the average 

 coach-horse lasted only two years. On certain roads aroilnd 

 London it was necessary to have six horses attached to a 

 coach in order to drag it through the two feet or so of mud 

 which, in wet weather, was to be found on such roads as the 

 one across Hounslow Heath. 



In accounting for an increased demand for coach-horses 

 in 1821, a paragraph from the " Yorkshire Gazette," quoted 

 by the " Morning Chronicle " of December 27 in that year, 

 declared that it arose out of the new regulations of the Post 

 Office, which caused the death of two horses, on an average, 

 in every three journeys of 200 miles. " The Highflyer of this 

 city," the paragraph continued, " lately lost two horses, 

 and it has cost the Manchester and Liverpool coaches seven- 

 teen horses since they commenced to cope with the mail and 

 run ten miles an hour in place of seven or eight. . . . Several 

 horses, in endeavouring to keep time, according to the new 

 Post Office regulations, have had their legs snapped in two 

 on the road, while others have dropped dead from the effort 

 of a ruptured blood-vessel or a heart broken in efforts to obey 

 the whip." 



On one of the southern roads a coach was put on which 



