MR CRESSETT'S THEORY 239 



" by this rapid mode of travelling " — at the period 

 in which he wrote it took approximately three 

 days to get from London to Dover, even in fine 

 weather — " gentlemen will come to London 

 upon the slightest pretext, which but for these 

 abominable coaches they would not do but upon 

 urgent necessity." 



Nor would the impending evil, in his opinion, 

 end there, for, lashing himself gradually into a 

 fury, he went on to maintain that "the gentle- 

 men's wives " would come too, and that no 

 sooner would they find themselves in London 

 than they would "get fine clothes, go to plays 

 and treats, and by these means get such a habit 

 of idleness and love for pleasure that they would 

 be uneasy ever after." 



Poor Mr Cressett ! 



Surely he must have been an ancestor, or at 

 the least some early relative, of the notorious Mr 

 Wightman who, just before the first London and 

 Brighton railway was laid down, wrote a book 

 in which he "proved" beyond refutation that no 

 locomotive steam engine could by any possibility 

 be propelled at a speed greater than about half the 

 speed of the fastest of the coaches then on the road! 



We smile indulgently at all this now, yet, 

 when all is said, have we changed so very greatly 

 since those dark and peculiar ages — since the 

 epoch that we now refer to so complacently 

 as "the good old times " ? (sic). 



