THE EARLY MAIL-COACHES 155 



risks, Palmer j^roposcd that a service of mail- 

 coaches should he estahlislied on every great road. 



It was a hold scheme, and seemed to most of 

 those to whom it was unfolded rash and unwork- 

 able. To quite understand this attitude of mind 

 on the part of Palmer's contemporaries, both inside 

 and outside the Post Office, it is essential to project 

 ourselves mentally into those closing years of 

 the eighteenth century, Avhen no one travelled save 

 under direful compulsion, when correspondence 

 between sundered friends and relatives was fitful 

 and infrequent, and when even business relations 

 between the newly-risen industries of the great 

 towns and the rural districts were carried on 

 in what Ave now consider to have been a most 

 leisurely and somnolent manner. The world went 

 very well then for the indolent, and they resented 

 any quickening of the pace ; and that the average 

 acute business men of that age considered the course 

 of post reasonable seems evident when we consider 

 that it was not from their ranks that this reform- 

 ing project came, and that they are not found 

 supporting it until the first mails had been put 

 on the road and proved successful. Then that 

 imagination which had been altogether lacking or 

 dormant in business minds was aroused, and the 

 great towns and cities not at first provided with 

 these new facilities eagerly petitioned the Post 

 Office authorities for mail-coaches. 



Palmer contended that mail-coaches could be 

 established at no greater expense than that of 

 the postboys and horses, who cost threepence a 



