2 28 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



when the pace, allowing twenty minutes for 

 dinner at Derby, and stops for changing, worked 

 out at just under twelve miles an hour. The 

 Manchester " Telegraph " day coach must by no 

 meansbe confounded with the old night coacliof that 

 name, which in 1821 started from the "Castle and 

 Falcon" at 2.30 p.m., and arrived at the " Moseley 

 Arms," Manchester, at 8 o'clock the next evening 

 — 29|^ hours, not much more than six miles an hour. 



The " Telegraph " day coach was built by 

 Waude, and was able to safely jocrform its 

 astonishingly quick journeys over what is in some 

 places an extremely hilly road by the introduction 

 of the flat springs that, from first being used on 

 this coach, were known as "telegraph springs," 

 a name they retain to this day. They set the 

 fashion of loAV-hung coaches, which, in the 

 lowering of the centre of gravit}^, retained their 

 equilibrium at high rates of speed and when going 

 round abrupt curves. Accidents, very numerous 

 in those years, would have been even more 

 frequent had it not been for this change. 



The heated rivalry between Sherman's " Man- 

 chester Telegraph" and Chaplin's "Manchester 

 Defiance" — continued for some years— was but 

 one phase of a keen competition that raged all 

 round the coaching world for the possession of 

 the Manchester traffic. The " Swan with Two 

 Necks " " Defiance " may be traced back to 1821, 

 and even before that date, if necessary. In that 

 year there was not a coach that went the distance 

 in less than 27 hours, and in this first flight the 



