38 THE COACHING ERA 



instances without unwarrantable licence have announced 

 that they would gallop. 



The Edinburgh mail did its 400 miles in forty hours, 

 and the other mails with proportionate despatch. The 

 public looked on and were staggered. It was the awful 

 velocity that alarmed them, and Lord Campbell says: 

 "This swift travelling was considered dangerous as well 

 as wonderful and I was gravely advised to stay a day at 

 York, as several passengers who had gone through 

 without stopping died of apoplexy from the rapidity of 

 the motion." 



This increased rate of travelling was very largely due 

 to the great improvement which took place in the roads 

 under the Post Office supervision, for without the genius 

 of Mac-Adam, coaching could never have attained to 

 the perfedlion it did. 



The stage-coaches paid heavy tolls, but the mails were 

 exempt from this; a circumstance which made stage- 

 coach proprietors eager for the privilege of carrying the 

 mails, and caused those who had money invested in turn- 

 pike securities to complain most bitterly. 



"The most second-sighted of your house could never 

 have forseen that the usage of the single horse and post- 

 boy afterwards in many places converted into the light 

 Mail-cart drawn by one horse, would be superseded by a 

 Royal carriage drawn by four horses, and filled by pas- 

 sengers, who before rode in the common stages, and 

 contributed to support the roads which they passed over," 

 wrote Mr. Pennant in his " Letter to a Member of 

 Parliament on Mail-Coaches" (1792), calling attention 



