72 HIGHWAYS AND HORSES. 



a very different appearance to what they do now 

 in their neglected and abandoned condition. In 

 those days a person could not pass a distance of 

 four or five miles along one of these great main roads 

 without meeting mail and stage-coaches, postchaises 

 with their four horses, gentlemen's travelling carriages, 

 bound on a journey, in addition to other vehicles 

 which even now one meets on a high-road, and which 

 the advent of the rail has not rendered obsolete 

 or swept away. What is now frequently termed a 

 lonely country road was in those days a scene of 

 energetic life and activity. The railroad has since then 

 absorbed this continuous stream of vitality, and the 

 roads have, comparatively speaking, owing to the 

 cessation of traffic thereon, fallen into disuse. 



In the course of a drive now over some miles of an 

 important main road, in place of the mail and stage- 

 coach, the post and travelling carriage, we see agri- 

 cultural waggons, coal, stone, and brick carts, brewers' 

 drays, an occasional carriage, a few dog-carts driven 

 by gentlemen or farmers, and a sprinkling of village 

 carts ; but the glory of the great main roads has de- 

 parted never to return. 



It must have been a pleasant sight in the course 

 of a walk or drive along a country road to see the 

 coaches passing to and fro, every coachman having 

 to draw aside at the approach of the mail as it dashed 

 by with its team of horses, urged to their utmost speed, 

 whilst the coach itself was quite sufficient to attract 

 attention, bearing as it did the Royal Arms, whilst the 

 coachman and guard in their scarlet and gold liveries 

 contributed to its singularity and smart appearance. 



In those days coaches travelled what was then 

 considered very fast, but long before the advent of 



