THE LATER MAILS ii 



in wroiig-doin2^ are shown in the practice of Sir 

 Watkin Williams Wynn (who assuredly Avas not 

 the only one) heing allowed to send his refractory 

 carriage-horses to the mails, to he steadied. On 

 such occasions the passengers from Oswestry 

 found themselves in for a Avild start and a rough 

 stage, and Sir Watkin had the steam taken out 

 of his hif^h-mettled horses at an imminent risk 

 to the lives and limbs of the lieges. 



From 1825, when the era of the fast day- 

 coaches began, the mails gradually lost the proud 

 pre-eminence they had kept for more than forty 

 years. Even though they had been accelerated 

 from time to time as roads improved, they went 

 no quicker than the ncAV-comcrs, and very often 

 not so quick, from point to point. They suffered 

 the disabilities of travelling by night, when careful 

 coachmen dared not let their horses out to their 

 best speed, and of being subject to the delays of 

 Post Office business ; and so, although they might, 

 and did, make wonderful speed between stages, 

 the showing on the whole journey could not 

 compare with the times of the fast day-coaches, 

 which halted only for changing horses and for 

 meals, and, enjoying the perfection of quick- 

 changing, often got a\A'ay in fifty seconds from 

 every halt. Going at more seasonable hours, the 

 day-coaches now began to seriously compete with 

 the mails, whose old-time supporters, although 

 still sensible of the dignity of travelling by mail, 

 were equally alive to the comfort and convenience 

 of going by daylight. Modern writers, enlarging 



