DAWN OF THE COACHING AGE 69 



which performs the Whole Journey 

 in Three Days (if God permit), and 

 sets forth at five o'clock in the 

 morning. 

 " Passengers to pay One Pound five 

 Shillings each, Avho are allowed to 

 carry fourteen Pounds Weight— for 

 all above to pay three-halfx^ence per 

 Pound." 



This is the first appearance of the epithet 

 " Flying " in the literature of coaches. Possibly 

 it was used in this first instance in order to dis- 

 tinguish the new conveyance from a stage-waggon 

 that must for many years before have gone the 

 journey, as well as to justify the higher fare 

 charged by the new vehicle. The waggon would 

 have conveyed passengers at anything from a 

 halfpenny to a penny a mile ; by " Plying 

 Machine " it came to threepence. The term 

 " Plying," for a coach that consumed three days 

 in performing a journey of 109 miles, raises a 

 smile; but it w^as only relative, and in contrast 

 with the pace of the Avaggons of that period, which 

 would probably have made it a six-days' trip. 



This Bath coach would seem to have set the 

 fashion in nomenclature, ior in April 1669 a 

 " Plying Coach " began to fly between Oxford 

 and London. It was, it will be noticed, a 

 " coach," and not a " machine " ; the term 

 " machine " did not come into general use until 

 about seventy years later. But although the 



