The Sport of Our Ancestors 



this chapter is not reprinted with the sole object of recalHng 

 the ancient charm of ' The Road.' It is of pecuHar interest 

 to-day because, since the automobile was invented, the 

 old turnpikes have in a sense come into their own again, 

 and carry on their surface in motor-cars the descendants 

 of those who used the same routes in their travelling 

 carriages, post-chaises, and road coaches. The talk of 

 the traveller to-day in the lounges of provincial hotels is 

 curiously like what it must have been a hundred years 

 ago. The state of the roads, the relative merits of the 

 wayside inns, the condition of the carriages, the best routes 

 by which to avoid the traffic : these are the topics now 

 common alike to us and to our ancestors, having been in 

 abeyance during the years when the railroad was the sole 

 method of long-distance transport. In view of its history 

 the revival of the road is full of interest. Not the least 

 startling thing is the comparatively small difference between 

 the continuous average speed of the motor-car and that of 

 the fast road coach. One would hardly believe that the 

 motor-car only performs a long journey twice as fast as 

 the old mails. Yet it is so. A motor-car, making allowance 

 for delay by the traffic and other hindrances, cannot sus- 

 tain an average pace over a long journey — say from London 

 to Edinburgh — of more than twenty miles an hour. The 

 distance is four hundred miles, and this was covered by 

 the old Edinburgh Mail at the rate of eleven miles an hour, 

 stoppages included. These stoppages allowed for changing 

 horses, as well as one hour for meals, of which twenty 

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