ii8 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



of the age and the energy with which the problem 

 of road-improvement was grasped by Parliament. 

 If the resulting betterment of the roads was not 

 so great as it should have been, that was due 

 rather to the unbusinesslike methods by which 

 the turnpike trustees des23atched their business, 

 and not to the Government. 



Aikin, writing of Manchester and its history, 

 tells how the trade of that town, carried on of old 

 by chapmen, owning gangs of pack-horses, began 

 to increase in 1730, consequent ujdou the improve- 

 ment of the roads. Waggons were set up, and the 

 chapmen, instead of setting forth with their goods 

 for sale, only rode out for orders, carrying patterns 

 with them in their saddle-bags. Thus the com- 

 mercial traveller, familiar in all the years between 

 1730 and the present time, came into existence. 

 During the forty years from 1730 to 1770, says 

 Aikin, the trade of Manchester was greatly pushed 

 by the practice of sending these " riders," as they 

 were called, all over the kingdom. The goods 

 they sold by sample were delivered in bulk by the 

 waggons. 



By 1750^ the gradual introduction of two 

 classes of vehicles between the common stage- 

 waggon and the stage-coach had begun. The first 

 of these intermediate types was the Shrewsbury 

 and London "Plying Stage Waggon," announced 

 to begin flying from Shrewsbury, October 22nd, 

 1750, to reach London in five days, winter and 

 summer. As Shrewsbury is 152 miles from 

 London, this meant thirty miles a day. Welsh 



