216 DRITIXG. 



from Oxford to London, starting at the same time. There 

 was keen rivalry between the two. The Age usually reached 

 London first ; but on the evening of April 30, Snowden gave 

 out that next day he was determined to have the best of it, 

 and he had prepared the way for a remarkable achievement 

 by ordering horses to be ready and waiting for him at the 

 different changes, these orders having been given as he drove 

 back to Oxford on the afternoon of the day named. Joe 

 Tollit was no less resolved not to be beaten, and the result 

 was that the Age accomplished the journey from Oxford to 

 Oxford Street in 3 h. 40 min. Tollit started from the Vine 

 Hotel, High Street, at n o'clock on May i, and thus describes 

 -the journey : 



I was just two hours going to Wycombe (25 miles), leaving that 

 place exactly at one o'clock, and one hour and forty minutes going 

 from Wycombe to London (29 miles). The Old Blenheim Coach 

 left the Star Hotel at 9 o'clock, and we passed it at Gerrard's Cross, 

 20 miles from London, although we had to wait at Uxbridge, for 

 the horses were not harnessed, and at Acton I had to drive the 

 same team back to town that had just come down, and also to 

 help harness them. I had a lady just behind me, and I asked 

 when at Notting Hill if she had felt at all alarmed ? She said not 

 in the least, her only fear was that her friends would not be at the 

 Bell and Crown, Holborn, to meet her. This turned out to be 

 the case, so I put her into a 'growler' and sent her home. Sir 

 Henry Peyton, of four-in hand renown, met Mr. James Castle, the 

 driver of the Blenheim, in Oxford Street, and said, ' Well, what's 

 become of the Age and Royal William ; I thought they were to 

 be in town before you to-day ? ' ' Well,' he said, ' so they are, I 

 should think, for they passed me while I was changing horses 

 at Gerrard's Cross, and I have not seen them since. If they have 

 not had a jolly good dinner before this time, they have been very 

 idle.' 



A more remarkable achievement than this has rarely found 

 a place in coaching annals. It was said of Joe Tollit that he 

 could get more out of four horses than any man in England. 

 The following instance of coolness and daring must have some- 

 what astonished anyone of weak nerves who happened to be on 



