240 HIGHWAYS AND HORSES. 



afternoon calls, as naturally in a steam carriage as he 

 does now in a T cart or smart buggy. 



Lord William Lennox, in his book on coaching, 

 says : " Many attempts have been made to introduce 

 steam carriages on the roads, and, in 1822, Mr. (after- 

 wards Sir) Goldsworthy Gurney — inventor of the 

 steam-jet, emphatically called by engineers ' the life 

 and soul of locomotion ' — constructed a carriage for 

 that purpose. To show that it was capable of as- 

 cending and descending hills, of maintaining a 

 uniformity of speed, once a journey was undertaken 

 from Hounslow Barracks to Bath and back. On 

 arriving at Melksham, where a fair was being held, 

 the people made an attack upon the steam carriage, 

 wounding the stoker and the engineer severely on 

 their heads by a volley of stones. 



" The return journey was more satisfactory, as the 

 whole distance (eighty-four miles), stoppages for fuel 

 and water included, was travelled over in nine hours 

 and twenty minutes, the carriage at one time increasing 

 its speed to twenty miles an hour. The Duke of 

 Wellington and his staff met the carriage at Hounslow 

 Barracks, and were drawn in his Grace's barouche by 

 the steam-engine into the town." 



Why the countrymen at this fair should have 

 savagely attacked the stoker and driver it is difficult 

 to say. As no explanation is given of the circumstance, 

 we should rather ascribe it to some trivial dispute 

 having arisen between the country people at the fair 

 and the men employed on the steam carriage, and 

 not to a determined and organised resistance to the 

 use of locomotives on common roads. 



The same writer goes on to say " that in May, 1S30, 

 much attention was excited in the neiohbourhood of 



