268 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



more stcam-coaclios ordered to he Liiilt. Eares 

 between London and Eirmingliam were not to 

 exceed £1 each, inside, and 10s. out. Hancock, 

 a thorough heliever in his invention and its 

 capacity for solving- the road-prohlems of the 

 time, offered to carry the mails at 20 miles an 

 hour; hut tlie Post OfTice declined. Railways 

 had, in fact, just succeeded in attracting atten- 

 tion, and were so strongly supported hy capitalists 

 tliat steam-carriages suffered neglect, and their 

 inventors were utterly discouraged. Bright hopes 

 and jirospects gradually faded away, and hy 1838 

 the railways held the field, undisputed. 



Railways themselves were at first ridiculed, 

 and suftered from the necessity of obtaining 

 Parliamentary sanction at a period Avlien the 

 landowning interests and public opinion were 

 decidedly hostile. Even when their construction 

 was autliorised, every one ridiculed the railways, 

 and called those people fools w^lio had invested 

 their money in them. To be a railway share- 

 holder was at that time, to the majority of people, 

 proof jiositive of insanity, while engineers and 

 directors were regarded as curious compounds of 

 fools and rogues. Any time between 1833 and 

 1837, the coachmen on the Great North Road 

 would point out to their box-seat passengers the 

 works of the London and Birmingham in i)rogress 

 l)eside that highway, and distinctly visible all 

 the way between Potter's Bar and Hatfield and 

 at various other points. " Going to run us off 

 the road, thci) saij,'" a coachman would remark, 



