92 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



with forests, sands, elephants, savages, or what 



they 2^1^^^^6-" 



Mean Avhile, manufacturing Engh^nd was coming 

 into existence, and the growing necessities of trade 

 had hrought al30ut an increase of coaches in other 

 directions. Thus Birmingham, whose first direct 

 communication with London has already been 

 shoAYu in existence in 1679, and again in 1731, 

 had set up a " Flying Coach " in 1742, followed in 

 1758 by an " Improved Birmingham Coach," with 

 the legend " Friction Annihilated " j^rominent on 

 the axle-boxes. This the Annual Register declared 

 to be " perhaps the most useful invention in 

 mechanics this age has produced." Much virtue 

 lingered in that " perhaps," for nothing more was 

 heard of that w^onderful device. 



It w^as not until 1754 that Manchester and 

 London w^ere in direct communication. The desire 

 of the provinces to get into touch with the metro- 

 polis has always been greater than that of London 

 to commune with the country toAvns, and thus we 

 see that it was an association of Manchester men 

 who set up the " Flying Coach," just as the 

 citizens of Oxford and the good folks of Shrews- 

 bury's desire to travel to London established con- 

 veyances for that purpose, and just as that early 

 railway, the London and Birmingham, Avas pro- 

 jected and financed at Birmingham, and should, 

 strictly speaking, have been inversely named. But 

 hear what the Manchester men of 1751 said : — 



" However incredible it may appear, this coach 

 will actually (barring accidents) arrive in London 



