70 DRIVING. 



pleasure coaches which run between London and the suburbs, 

 and in Scotland, Devonshire, and Wales, where in the tourist 

 season a considerable amount of posting is still done in those 

 mountainous districts inaccessible to the railway. In these 

 districts a pair of posters will go thirty to forty miles a day, 

 when the pressure of business requires. Before the advent of 

 railways fifty miles in a day was not considered too much for 

 a pair of horses to do, and that in a lumbering travelling 

 carriage. The rules laid down for such a journey were to 

 go ten miles and bait for fifteen minutes, giving each horse an 

 opportunity to wash out his mouth and a wisp of hay. Then 

 to travel another six miles and stop half an hour, taking off the 

 harness, rubbing the horses well down, and giving to each half 

 a peck of corn. After travelling a further ten miles, hay and 

 water were given as at first, when another six miles might be 

 traversed, and then a bait of at least two hours was considered 

 necessary, and the horses were given hay and a feed of corn. 

 After journeying another ten miles, hay and water as before was 

 administered, and the rest of the journey might be accomplished 

 without a further stop, when the horses were provided with a 

 mash before their night meal, and if the weather were cold and 

 wet, some beans thrown in. This calculates a pace averaging 

 six or seven miles an hour. 



A very important question is, how much work can a horse 

 or horses do ? 



Some people will say that horses can hardly be used too 

 much, others that an hour or so a day is enough. A fair criterion 

 may be obtained by taking the work which large jobmasters 

 and contractors, who naturally get the most they can out of 

 their horses, expect them to do. For slow work, such as that 

 of a commercial traveller in London, when the distances are 

 short, the pace slow, and stoppages long and many, a horse is 

 expected to, and does, spend a day of eight hours in the shafts, 

 and except Sunday does not often get a rest ; van-horses and 

 others of that class also work, as a rule, all day ; but, although 

 the hours are long, it will be found that no very great number 



