P4 HIGHWAYS AND HORSES. 



Mr. James Payn, in a volume of essays, speaks of 

 the punctuality o coaches in the following terms. In 

 a chapter which he entitles Too Late," he says : "It 

 is recorded of the late Mr. Leigh Hunt that his pro- 

 crastination was so excessive that he could never trust 

 himself to rise in time to leave home and take the 

 coach, but was obliged to engage a bed overnight at 

 the inn from which it started. He was a punctual 

 man, however, compared to me. I could never make 

 certain of being a passenger unless I slept in the coach 

 itself The nicety affected by these vehicles in the 

 matter of time (and particularly if they carried the 

 mail-bags) was simply ridiculous. 



" They would not, I believe, have waited for King- 

 George in person, although they carried his very arms 

 upon their sides. How often have I engaged post- 

 horses at a ruinous expense to overtake those im- 

 placable machines ! How often have I entered them 

 at the very moment of departure with my waistcoat 

 unbuttoned and my coat and top-boots in my hands ! 

 How often have I toiled after their revolving wheels, 

 making fruitless signals of distress, and with my cries 

 for succour drowned in the ' tooting ' of the relentless 

 horn ! " 



In the days of coaching the farming of turnpike 

 tolls was a great source of revenue. A Mr. Levy 

 farmed tolls to the amount of ^500,000 a year, and 

 post-horse duties to the amount of ^300,000. The 

 post-horse duties were fees payable to Government by 

 horse proprietors when letting or jobbing post-horses 

 to travellers. These sums proved the enormous 

 amount of traffic that must have existed upon the roads 

 in those days. It must be remembered that these 

 figures do not represent the profit, but merely the net 



