328 History of Inland Transport 



was run at the rate of twelve miles an hour ; but seven 

 horses died in three weeks, and the pace was then reduced 

 to ten miles an hour. An average speed even of six and a 

 half miles an hour was declared to be scarcely possible on 

 some of the roads. " It tore the horses' hearts out." 



One cannot wonder that, when the fact of trains on the 

 Liverpool and Manchester Railway doing an average of 

 fifteen miles an hour with the greatest ease, and attaining to 

 double that speed when necessary, became known, humani- 

 tarian considerations were, in themselves, sufficient to win 

 preference for rail over road transport. 



There was also a practical as well as a humanitarian side 

 to this appalling death-rate among the coach-horses. Thomas 

 Gray, in the course of his " Observations on a General Iron 

 Rail- way," showed that, reckoning the number of coach 

 and postchaise horses at no more than 100,000, and allowing 

 for renewal of stock every four years, keep and interest on 

 capital expenditure, the outlay would amount in twelve 

 years to 34,700,000 ; while a like calculation, for the same 

 period, in regard to the 500,000 waggon, coach, and post- 

 chaise horses employed on the main turnpike roads of the 

 country, gave a total of no less than ^173,500,000. 



While, again, fair-weather travellers may have enjoyed 

 the scenery and the poetry of motion when seated on the 

 top of a coach going across country in the summer-time, 

 there were possibilities of great discomforts and dangers 

 having to be faced, as well. Accidents were so frequent that 

 it was usual for the coaches to carry a box of carpenters' tools, 

 supplemented in the winter by a snow shovel. Sometimes 

 the coaches stuck in the mire ; sometimes they upset. They 

 passed through flooded roads, they were detained by fog, 

 they got snowed up, or their passengers might run terrible 

 risks from frost. On the arrival of the Bath coach at Chippen- 

 ham one morning in the month of March, 1812, it was found 

 that two passengers had been frozen to death on their seats, 

 and that a third was dying. In the winter of 1814 there was a 

 prolonged fog, followed by a severe snow-storm which lasted 

 forty-eight hours. In one day thirty-three mail-coaches due 

 at the General Post Office failed to arrive. At Christmas, 

 1836, there was a snow-storm which lasted nearly a week. 

 On December 26 the Exeter mail had to be dug out of the 



