12 SI AGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



\\\)C)w the timos of our ancestors, lay great stress 

 iq)on the endurances our hearty i^randfathers 

 " cheerfully " disj^layed, and show us great, l)luff, 

 burly, red-cheeked men, Avho enjoyed this long 

 night-travelling. But that is an absurdity. They 

 did not enjoy it ; they Avere not all bluff and 

 burly ; and that they Avelcomed the change that 

 gave them swift travelling by day instead of night 

 is obvious from the instant success of the fast day- 

 coaches, and from the later business-history of the 

 mails. Mail-contractors, who in the prosperous 

 days of no competition were screwed down by the 

 Post Office to incredible mileage figures, began 

 to grumble ; but for long they grumbled in vain. 

 Even in 183J< the Post Office continued to pay 

 only 2f/. a mile on 42 mails, \\d. a mile on 34, 

 and only one received as much as 4f/. The Liver- 

 pool and Manchester carried the mailbags for 

 nothing, and tliree actually paid the Post Office 

 for the privilege. At this time the old rule 

 forbidding more than three outside passengers 

 on the mails Avas relaxed. This indulsrence besran 

 in Scotland, where the contractors, in considera- 

 tion of the sparseness of the j^oj^ulation and the 

 scarcity of chance passengers on the way, Avere 

 alloAved a fourth outside passenger ; and eventu- 

 ally many of the mails, like the stages, carried 

 from eight to tAvelve outsides. This, hoAvever, did 

 not suffice, for those passengers did not often 

 present themselves ; and at last the contractors 

 really did not care to obtain the Post Office 

 business, finding it pay better to devote their 



