74 



STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



increase and advantage of the Excise ; and the 

 breed of horses would be improved, in consequence 

 of the gentlemen who then rode in coaches being 

 obliged to return to horse-riding. 



In 1673, in an announcement of stages to 

 York, Chester, and Exeter, the journey to Exeter 

 is put at " eight days in summer, ten in winter." 

 Here was at least one coach that had already 

 begun to run throughout the year, but its summer 

 performance justified the remarks of those ancients 

 who, seeing the original " four-days " announce- 

 ment of 1658, had shaken their heads and sus- 

 pected it would never last. 



The year 1678 saw a coach on the road between 

 the important seaport of Hull and the city of 

 York, proljably in connection Avith the York stage 

 between that and London; l)ut our only know- 

 ledge of its existence at so early a date is — ^to put 

 it in rather an Irish way — a reference to its having 

 been taken off. Ralph Thoresby, the Yorkshire 

 antiquary, is our authority. In his diary he notes 

 that he landed at Hull in November of that year, 

 and that the stage coach was already over for the 

 winter. This Hull and York coach we may suppose 

 to have been in connection Avith a York and London 

 stage already existing — that original vehicle, 

 started in 1658 and alluded to in 1673, Avliich was 

 to perform the journey in four days, the fare 40s. 

 The first detailed account of the '•' York Old 

 Coach," as it came to be known, is found in an old 

 advertisement broadside discovered some years 

 since at the back of an old draAver at the " Black 



