ACCIDENTS itg 



next day. At the inquest a deodand of £30 was 

 placed on the coach. 



Prom this time forward the records of coaching 

 accidents grow fewer, and occur at longer intervals; 

 hut only hecause coaches themselves were heing 

 swiftly replaced hy the railways, which had hy 

 noAV come largely into their kingdom. Railway 

 accidents took their place, and the coaching artists 

 hegan to paint, and the printsellers to puhlish, 

 pictures like that of " Eoad versus Eail " engraved 

 here, showing a very smart and well-appointed 

 coach howling safely along the road, Avhile a 

 railway accident in progress in the middle distance 

 attracts the elegant and rather smug attention 

 of coachman and passengers. 



Every one now forgot the numerous casual- 

 ties of the old order of things — save, indeed, 

 the hereaved and the maimed, suffering from 

 the happenings of pure mischance, or from the 

 drunken or sporting folly of the coachmen. 



But to the very last, in those ontlying districts 

 to which the rail came late, and where the coaches 

 continued to ply regularly until the 'fifties, the 

 tragical possilnlities of the road were insistent, 

 confounding the thorough- going sentimentalists 

 to whom the old times were everything that was 

 good, and the neAV, hy consequence, altogether had. 

 Listen to the moving tale of the Cheltenham 

 and Aherystwith down mail on a Avild night 

 "ahout" 1852, according to the vague recollection 

 for dates of Moses James Nohhs. 



Although torrents of rain had hcen falling 



