155 HIGHWAYS AND HORSES. 



A pair of post-horses for five miles cost five 

 shillings, and at one and sixpence a mile, seven and 

 sixpence. At twelvepence a mile for twenty miles 

 they of course cost a sovereign, which appears to have 

 been remarkably cheap ; but horses in those days 

 did not cost what they do now. Lord William 

 Lennox, in his very interesting book on coaching, 

 says that the average price of horses for the fast 

 coaches was about ^23. Fancy teams and those 

 working the first stage out of London were rated 

 considerably higher ; taking a hundred miles of ground 

 well-horsed, the above was about the value. "In 

 these days," he very truly says, "it would be nearly if not 

 quite double," as mentioned elsewhere. The average 

 period of each horse's service did not exceed four 

 years. By this is meant that at the expiration of four 

 years the horses were worn out. If the horses lasted 

 no longer than this, it was evident that the demand 

 for horses must have been very great, and where 

 there is a very great demand there should have been 

 a fair supply. " At Hounslow, the first stage out 

 of London on the great road leading to the West 

 of England, there used to stand solely for posting 

 and coaching, 2500 horses." Lord William Lennox, 

 in speaking of the desertion of the roads and the 

 introduction of the locomotive, says that " Each of 

 these horses must have occasioned an outlay of two 

 pounds per week for keep, duty, shoeing, ostlers, 

 harness, and clothing, not to mention the veterinary 

 surgeon, so that there was a sum of five thousand 

 pounds circulated every week in this one town, besides 

 money that was spent by travellers at the different 

 inns." But I think this estimate was rather high. 

 He goes on to say that the state of things on the 



