2 STAG^-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



hours, no less than £10 8s. ; about Q>\d. a mile. 

 To-day, £2 18s. franks you through, first-class ; 

 or 33s. third — itself infinitely more luxurious 

 than even the consecrated inside of a mail- 

 coach. 



The mails starting from London were per- 

 fection in coaches, harness and horses ; hut as 

 the distance from the Metropolis increased so 

 did the mails become more and more shabby. 

 Hawker, travelling north, found them slow and 

 slovenly, the harness generally second-hand, one 

 horse in plated, another in brass harness ; and 

 when they did have new (which, he tells us, was 

 very seldom) it was put on like a labourer's 

 leather breeches, and worn till it rotted, without 

 ever being cleaned. 



Of course, very few people ever did, or could 

 have had the endurance to, travel all that distance 

 strais^ht awav, and so travel was further com- 

 plicated, delayed, and rendered more costly by 

 the halts necessary to recruit jaded nature. 



Hawker evidently did it in four stages : to 

 Ferrybridge, 179 miles, where he rested the 

 first night and picked up the next mail the 

 following ; thence the 65 miles onward to Greta 

 Bridge ; on again, 59 miles, to Carlisle ; and 

 thence, finally, to Glasgow in another 101 miles. 

 In his diary he gives " a table to show for how 

 much a gentleman and his servant (the former 

 inside, with 14 lb. of luggage ; the latter out- 

 side, Avith 7 lb.) may go from London to 

 Glasgow." 



