54 BRITISH QUADRUPEDS. 



At that time it was common to dine on the road to 

 Epsom, a distance of sixteen miles from London, the 

 journey taking nearly the whole day ; and it is stated, 

 that when the poet Cowley lived at Chertsey, which is 

 about two and twenty miles from town, he told a friend 

 whom he expected on a visit, that he might make a 

 comfortable journey by passing the night at Brentford, 

 which may now be reached in about an hour. 



A few years ago the following statements were 

 made in reference to coach travelling : The Edin- 

 burgh mail runs the distance, four hundred miles, in 

 forty hours ; and watches are often set by its arrival, 

 in many places. Stoppages included, this approaches 

 eleven miles in the hour ; and much the greater part 

 is done by lamp-light. An Exeter day-coach passes 

 over its ground, one hundred and seventy three miles, 

 in twenty hours ; the mail, before it was placed on the 

 railroad, went the distance in little more than seventeen 

 hours. Both are instances of remarkable travelling, 

 considering the natural unevenness of the country 

 through which the vehicles have to pass. And to men- 

 tion only one more fact of this kind, a nobleman is said 

 to have spoken in the House of Peers on one night, and 

 to have been at his own door in Durham, two hundred 

 and fifty miles off, the next, having travelled that dis- 



