220 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



reduction made, for it just turned the scale in 

 many coaching accounts, and so kept on those 

 public conveyances where otherwise they Avould 

 have been commercially impossible. The railway 

 magnates, who had by that time become a power 

 in the land, could afford to influence the Govern- 

 ment in favour of these concessions, for the coaches 

 had already been driven off the direct routes, and 

 Avere no longer formidable competitors of the loco- 

 motive. They had, indeed, l)ecome merely feeders 

 to the victorious railways. 



