THE LATER COACHMEN 241 



Jo Walton, on the Cambridge Road, was a 

 notable whip of the smarter kind. No unwieldy 

 stout man he, l3ut tall and slim, faultlessly dressed, 

 and one of the best coachmen that ever drove. 

 The railway spoiled him in mid-career, but not 

 before the very knowing gentlemen who wrote for 

 the sporting periodicals of the age had made his 

 a classic figure. The Cambridge Road alone w^as 

 Walton's ground. He drove the " Safety," and 

 then the "Times," in six hours; but it was not 

 until he succeeded to the l)ox-seat of the " Star of 

 Cambridge " that he came into notice. That coach 

 performed the fifty- two miles between the " Belle 

 Sauvage " and the " Hoop " at Cambridge in five 

 hours. With fifteen minutes deducted for break- 

 fast on the way, and another fifteen for changing, 

 this gives four hours and a half actual running, or 

 a speed of nearly eleven and three-quarter miles 

 an hour : an incredible rate of jirogress, but 

 vouched for by a contril)utor to the New Sporting 

 Magazine in 1833. 



Jo Walton drove the " Star " double, every 

 day except Sunday, leaving the " Hoop," at Cam- 

 bridge at 7 a.m., reaching London at noon, and 

 setting forth again for Cambridge the same after- 

 noon. This feat of driving over a hundred miles 

 a day he continued until the railway by degrees 

 caused the splendour of the " Star " to wane. 



The Cambridge Road has, of course, many dead 



level stretches, and Walton was sometimes known 



to put the coach along a certain five miles in 



twenty minutes. Yet, according to the enthusiastic 



VOL. I. 16 



