THE STAGE-WAGGONS 139 



by the then usual team of eight horses, augmented 

 by two, or even four, more on many of the hills 

 that make the Avest-country roads a constant suc- 

 cession of ujis and downs, they had brought heavy 

 goods and luggage that distance in twelve days, at 

 the rate of three miles an hour, carrying passengers 

 at a halfpenny a mile. But with the coming of 

 the nineteenth century they found the stage- 

 coaches, with their "rumble-tumbles," beginning 

 to carry peojile at a slightly higher fare, and 

 performing the whole distance of 269 miles 

 in three days and nights. Even the poorest 

 found it cheaper to pay the higher fare and save 

 the delays and expenses of the other nine days, 

 and so Messrs. Russell found one branch of their 

 trade decaying. They accordingly, about 1820, 

 put their " Fly Vans " on the road, vehicles which 

 did the journey in the same time as the ordinary 

 stage-coaches of that period, and, running night 

 and day, continued so to set forth and come to 

 their journey's end until the railway came and 

 presently made away with fly vans, stage-coaches 

 and mails alike. 



A sign of the times immediately preceding 

 railways was the ajDjiearance of the heavy covered 

 luggage and goods vans, exclusively devoted to 

 that class of traffic and carrying no passengers. 

 How the heavy goods of Birmingham and other 

 great towns were then conveyed along the roads 

 is shown in the curious and very interesting 

 old painting, engraved here, of Pickford & Co.'s 

 London and Manchester Luggage Van. The roads 



