AMERICAN ROADS. 37 



to the top of St. Paul's in an omnibus. Never, never 

 once that day was that coach in any position, attitude, 

 and kind of motion to which we are accustomed m 

 coaches. Never did it make the smallest approach to 

 one's experience of the proceedings of any kind of 

 vehicle that goes on wheels." 



This completes our greatest English novelist's — or 

 rather humorous novelist's — description of American 

 coaching. One can scarcely dignify it with the term 

 " description," since it deals with so much that taxes 

 our faith. What coach could possibly remain right 

 side up that experienced such extraordinary con- 

 tortions '^ and what harness ever yet made allowed 

 of horses vanishing from sight or following behind the 

 coach to which they were harnessed, presumably with 

 the intention of mounting up behind ? And, after all 

 this long description, do we realise the true condition 

 of these roads and their mode of construction, or can 

 we be supposed to understand the description of 

 vehicle in which Dickens made these singular 

 journeys ? 



" The next day," he continues, " there being no 

 stage-coach upon the road we wished to take, I 

 hired 'an extra,' at a reasonable charge, to carry 

 us to Tiffin, a small town from whence there is 

 a railway to Sandusky. This was an ordinary 

 four-horse stage-coach, such as I have described, 

 changing horses and drivers as the stage-coach 

 would, but was exclusively our own for the 

 journey. To ensure our having our horses at the 

 proper stations, and being incommoded by no 

 strangers, the proprietors sent an agent on the box 

 who was to accompany us the whole way through ; 



