CHAP. IV. 



TOXVAIIDS THE END OF LAST CENTURY. 



197 



ever, ;is to endanger overturning or other mischief. On 

 the panels of the coacli were painted the appropriate 

 n ml t o of Sat cito si sat bene quick enough if well enough 

 a motto which the future Lord Chancellor made his 

 own. 1 



The journey by coach between London and Edinburgh 

 still occupied a week or more, according to the state of 

 the weather, as late as 1763. Between Bath or Bir- 

 mingham and London occupied between two and three 

 davs. The road across Hounslow Heath was so bad, 

 that it was stated before a Parliamentary Committee 

 that it was frequently known about that time to be two 

 feet deep in mud. The rate of travelling was about six 

 and a half miles an hour; but the work was so heavy 

 that it "tore the horses' hearts out," as the common 

 saying went, so that they only lasted for two or three 

 years. When the Bath road became improved, Burke 

 was enabled, in the summer of 1774, to travel from Lon- 

 don to Bristol, to meet the electors there, in little more 

 than four and twenty hours ; but his biographer takes 

 care to relate that he "travelled with incredible speed." 

 Glasgow was still a fortnight's distance from the metro- 

 polis, and the arrival of the mail there was so important 

 an event that a gun was fired to announce its coming in. 

 Sheffield set up a "flying machine on steel springs" to 

 London in 1760 : it "slept" the first night at the Black 

 Man's Head Inn, Nottingham ; the second at the Angel, 

 Northampton ; and arrived at the Swan with Two Necks, 

 Lad-lane, < m the evening of the third day. The fare was 

 II. 17s., and 14 Ibs. of luggage was allowed. But the 



1 We may incidentally mention 

 three other journeys south by "future 

 Lords Clianeellors. Mansfield rode up 

 from Scotland to London when a boy, 

 taking two months to make the journey 

 on his i ony. Wedderburn'fl journey 

 liy coaeh horn Edinburgh to London, 

 ill 1757, occupied him six days. 

 " When I tirst reached London," said 

 the late Lord Campbell, " I perlornud 



the same journey in three nights and 

 two days, Mr. Palmer's mail-coaches 

 being then established; but this switt 

 travelling was considered dangerous as 

 well as wonderful, and I was gravely ad- 

 vised to stay a day at York, as a 

 passengers who had gone through with- 

 out stopping had died of a] ople.xy 

 from the rapidity of the motion !" 



