CHAPTER XIII ACCIDENTS 



THE accidents which occurred to the mail- 

 and stage-coaches were many, and alarm- 

 ingly frequent. When the railways menaced 

 the popularity of the road, the old coachmen, 

 with a calm ignoring of aftual fa6ts, endeavoured to 

 point out the terrific dangers of the new system by 

 remarking darkly: "When a coach upsets there you are, 

 but when a train upsets where are you?" This sounded 

 impressively convincing, but is scarcely borne out by a 

 perusal of the old newspapers, from whence it appears 

 that though the most likely place for inside passengers 

 in a coach accident was underneath the coach, and the 

 "outsides" among the plunging horses, yet there were 

 many other means whereby passengers could break their 

 legs, or imperil the safety of their necks. Coaches fell 

 down chalk-pits, overturned into rivers, were buried 

 in snow-drifts, ran into each other, and capsized in every 

 conceivable manner. 



One unlucky Friday no less than four of the northern 

 coaches upset, and the passengers on the Glasgow mail 

 had a miraculous escape when passing over a narrow 

 bridge at Kirby Thore. The night was dark, the bridge 

 dangerously narrow, and the coach going at full speed. 

 Just as the bridge was reached, one of the leaders 

 swerved, the coach rocked, struck the low parapet, 

 and fell right over into the river. The passengers 

 struggled frantically in the darkness, one gentleman 



displaying great bravery, rescued a lady and child from 



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