136 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



had already begun to stretch the length and 

 breadth of the land, the waggons on the less 

 important highways continued very much as they 

 had been accustomed to do ; but with the second 

 decade of the nineteenth century a demand for the 

 quicker conveyance of goods arose on those great 

 roads that gave access from the important manu- 

 facturing towns to London, or from London to the 

 chief seaports. With this demand, in the improved 

 condition of those roads, it now became for the 

 first time possil)le to comply. On less frequented 

 routes— roads leading to agricultural districts and 

 sleepy old towns and villages that produced nothing 

 for distant markets and wanted little from them — 

 the common stage waggon and the flying waggon 

 lingered. The Kendal Plying Waggon of 1816, 

 pictured by Rowlandson, halting at a wayside inn 

 to take up or set down goods and passengers and 

 to change horses, lasted well on into the railway 

 age ; but in places nearer to and in more direct 

 communication with the commerce of great cities, 

 the type was early supplemented by later con- 

 trivances. 



The first of these were the " Ply Vans," of 

 which the swift conveyances of Kussell & Co., 

 van jiroprietors, trading between London and the 

 West of England, were typical. They were built 

 on the model of the wooden hooded van seen in 

 London streets at the jj resent time, but considerably 

 larger than now common. Russells had for many 

 years continued a service of stage-waggons between 

 the port of Palmouth and the Metrojiolis. Drawn 



