GREAT SNOW-STORM OF 1S36. 91 



who made an earnest appeal to the mail guard, whose 

 coach had got into a drift nearly at the same spot. 

 The ladies said the post-boy had left them to go to St. 

 Albans to get fresh cattle, and had been gone two hours. 

 The guard was unable to assist them, and his mail 

 extracted, he pursued his way for London, leaving the 

 chariot and ladies in the situation where they w^ere first 

 seen. The Devonport mail arrived at half-past eleven 

 o'clock ; the guard, who had travelled with it from 

 Ilminster, a distance of 140 miles, states that journey 

 to have been a most trying one to both men and 

 cattle. The storm commenced when they reached 

 Wincanton, and never afterwards ceased. The wind 

 blew fresh, and the snow and sleet, in crossing Salisbury 

 Plain, was driving into their faces, so as almost to 

 blind them. Between Andover and Whitchurch, the 

 mail was stuck fast in a snow-drift, and the horses, 

 in attempting to get out, were nearly buried. The 

 coachman got down, and almost disappeared in the drift 

 upon which he alighted. Fortunately, at this juncture 

 a waggon with four horses came up, and by unyoking 

 these from the waggon and attaching them to the 

 mail, it was got out of the hollow in which it was sunk. 

 The Exeter mail by Yeovil, due on Monday evening, 

 arrived at one o'clock a.m. on Tuesday. The mail- 

 coach, seven miles from Louth, had got off the road 

 and went over into a gravel-pit. A horse was said 

 to be killed by the accident, and the guard severely 

 bruised. 



" Last night, the mail which was proceeding to 

 London was regularly blocked up by the snow, and 

 300 men were immediately sent to make a passage 

 for it, principally military sappers and miners, and after 

 some hours they succeeded in reaching the mail, when 



