10(5 ROADS AND TltAVF.LLINt i 



CHAPTER IV. 



ROADS AND TRAVELLING TOWARDS THE END OF LAST CENTURY. 



THE progress made in the improvement of the roads 

 throughout the kingdom was exceedingly slow. Thougl i 

 some of the main thoroughfares were mended up so as 

 to admit of stage-coach travelling at the rate of from four 

 to six miles an hour, the lesser-frequented roads continued 

 to be all but impassable. Travelling was still difficult, 

 tedious, and dangerous. Only those who could not well 

 avoid it ever thought of undertaking a journey, and 

 travelling for pleasure was out of the question. A writer 

 in the ' Gentleman's Magazine,' in 1752, says that a 

 Londoner at that time would no more think of travelling 

 into the west of England for pleasure than of going to 

 Nubia. 



But signs of progress were not awanting. In 1754 

 some enterprising Manchester men advertised a " flying- 

 coach " for the conveyance of passengers between that 

 town and the metropolis ; and, lest they should be classed 

 with projectors of the Munchausen kind, they heralded 

 their enterprise with this statement : " However in- 

 credible it may appear, this coach will actually (barring 

 accidents) arrive in London in four days and a half after 

 leaving Manchester ! " Fast coaches were also esta- 

 blished on other of the northern roads, though not with 

 very extraordinary results as to speed. When John 

 Scott, afterwards Lord Chancellor Eldon, travelled from 

 Newcastle to Oxford in 1766, he mentions that he 

 journeyed in what was denominated " a fly," because of 

 ils rapid travelling; yet he was three or four days and 

 nights on the road. There was no such velocity, how- 



