76 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



That York even then displayed its sub-metro- 

 politan character will be seen from the footnote 

 to the handbill, relating to the Newcastle coach. 

 Local services apparently radiated from the city 

 to Hull, Leeds, Wakefield, and other places. 



Meanwhile, other provincial towns had not been 

 idle, and we must needs make a slight divergence 

 here to give an outline of what Glasgow was 

 attempting in local intercommunication. Nothing 

 thus early was on the road between Glasgow and 

 London, but strenuous efforts were made to link 

 Glasgow and Edinburgh (forty-four miles apart) 

 together by a public service so early as 1678, when 

 Provost Camj^bell and the magistrates of Glasgow 

 agreed with William Hoorn, of Edinburgh, for a 

 coach to go on that road once a week : "a suffi- 

 cient strong coach, drawn by sax able horses, 

 whilk coach sail cojitine sax persons and sail go 

 ance ilk week, to leave Edinburgh ilk Monday 

 morning, and to return again (God willing) ilk 

 Saturday night." To travel those forty-four miles 

 was, therefore, the occupation of three days. Even 

 thus early we see the beginnings of that spirit of 

 municipal enterprise which has in modern times 

 carried Glasgow so far. Now the local tramway, 

 water, gas, and electric lighting authority, she, so 

 early as the seventeenth century, essayed a public 

 service of coaches. 



Like much else in early coaching histor}^ this 

 is merely a fragment ; but again, in 1743, Glasgow 

 is found returning to the question, in an attempt 

 of the Town Council to set up a stage-coach or 



