THE HORSEMEN- 55 



Could not use the latter without being at the 

 expense of suftering the heasts themselves to use 

 the former." 



Not until the first decade of the nineteenth 

 century had gone ])y did the horseman wholly 

 disappear from the road into or on to the coaches. 

 Let us attem^^t to fix the date, and j^ut it at 1820, 

 when the fast coaches began to go at a pace equal 

 or superior to that of the saddle-horse. The 

 curious may even yet see the combined upping- 

 blocks and milestones placed for the use of horse- 

 men on the road across Dunsmore Heath. 



In thus giving 1820 as the date of the horse- 

 man's final disajipearance, it need not be supposed 

 that Cobbett and his Bural Rides are forgotten, 

 He covered England on horseback some years 

 later, but his journeys are not on all fours Avith 

 those of the horsemen whose only desire was 

 quickly to get from start to finish of their 

 journeys. He halted by the way, and from the 

 vantage-point of the saddle cast a keenly scruti- 

 nising eye upon the agricultural methods of the 

 various districts, as seen across the toj^s of hedge- 

 roAvs, or delayed his travels to harangue the 

 farmers on market-days. Nor is the existence 

 forgotten of those country gentlemen and City 

 merchants Avho, seventy years ago, rode to and 

 from the City on horseback ; but they also formed 

 an exception. Already, by some ten years or so, 

 the commercial travellers, as a l)ody, had left the 

 saddle and taken to Avhat Avas, in its first incep- 

 tion, essentially the vehicle of the commercial 



