I20 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YOR^ 



of 1764, with a limited number of seats at 

 30s., each came on the scene, the several 

 degrees of contempt with which all these classes 

 of travellers, from those at twopence-farthing a 

 mile down to those others at a penny-farthing, 

 regarded one another and the lowest class, whose 

 shilling a day or halfpenny a mile was the lowest 

 common denominator in stage-waggon travelling, 

 must have been curious certainly, if not edifying, 

 to witness. The usual alternative of a halfpenny 

 a mile or a shilling a day gives about twenty-four 

 miles as a day's journey for the common stage- 

 waggon, and as the Flying Waggon was advertised 

 to go at the rate of thirty miles a day, six miles a 

 day was therefore the measure of the superiority in 

 speed of one over the other. But the accumulated 

 contempt of all those social scales for the occupant 

 of the common waggon did not rest there, any 

 more than it began Avith the passengers of the 

 " Machine." Just as the lordly and gentle folk 

 who had travelled in their own chariots looked 

 down even upon the loftiest heights of stage-coach 

 travelling, so did the poor folk of the waggons 

 unload their weight of contempt upon those poorest 

 of the poor, who, having nothing to lose, feared 

 no one — except perha23s the parish constable, apt 

 to be arbitrary and not always able to distinguish 

 between a penniless but honest wayfarer and a 

 rogue and vagabond. Frequently these travellers 

 in the lowest stratum saw the highwayman 

 approach, not merely without fear but with a 

 certain pleasurable anticipation ; because your 



