lo STAGE COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



from tho return mado in lcS12, that the cost for 

 Scotland would have been £11,229 IGs. M. ; 

 for England, £33,536 2s. M,. ; and for Wales, 

 £5221 3s. lOr/. : total, £19,990 2s. 9f/. per annum. 



The mails, travelling as they did throughout 

 the night, Avere subject to many dangers. They 

 were brilliantly lighted, generally with four, and 

 often with five, lamps, and cast a very dazzling 

 illumination upon the highway. It is true that 

 no certainty exists as to the number of lamps 

 mail-coaches carried, and that old prints often 

 show only two ; so that the practice in this 

 important matter probably varied on different 

 routes and at various times. But the crack mails 

 at the last certainly carried five lamps — one on 

 either side of the fore upper quarter, one on 

 either side of the fore boot, and another under 

 the footboard, casting a light upon the horses' 

 backs and harness. These radiant swiftnesses, 

 hurtling along th(3 roads at a pace considerably 

 over ten miles an hour, wxre highly dangerous 

 to other users of the roads, who were half -blinded 

 by the glar(>, and, alarmed by the heart-shaking 

 thunder of their approach and fearful of being 

 run down, generally drove into the ditches as 

 the least of two evils. The mails were then, 

 as electric tramcars and high-powered motor-cars 

 are now, the tyrants of the road. 



But they were not only dangerous to others. 

 Circumstances that ought never to have been 

 permitted sometimes rendered them perilous to 

 all they carried. The possibilities of that time 



