^Nimrod ' 



the Bognor coach, horsed by the Messrs. Walkers of Mitchel 

 Grove, and driven in the first style by Mr. John Walker, must 

 also be fresh in the recollection of many of our readers ; 

 and Sir Vincent Cotton, one of our oldest baronets, now 

 drives the Age, having purchased it of Mr. Willan, who 

 drove it, and who now drives the Magnet on the same road. 

 But to return to fast work : the Edinburgh mail runs the 

 distance, four hundred miles, in a little over forty hours, and 

 we may set our watches by it at any point of her journey. 

 Stoppages included, this approaches eleven miles in the 

 hour, and much the greater part of it by lamplight. The 

 Exeter day-coach, the Herald, from the Saracen's Head, 

 Snow Hill, runs over her ground, a hundred and seventy- 

 three miles, in twenty hours — admirable performance, con- 

 sidering the natural unevenness of the country through 

 which she has to pass. The Devonport mail does her work 

 in first-rate style, two hundred and twenty-seven miles, in 

 twenty-two hours. In short, from London to Cheltenham, 

 Gloucester, Worcester, Birmingham, Norwich, or any other 

 place, whose distance does not much exceed one hundred miles, 

 is now little more than a pleasant morning drive. We say 

 pleasant \ for this extraordinary speed is not attained, generally 

 speaking, by putting animals to anything like cruel exertion. 

 A fast coach has, or ought to have, very nearly a horse 

 to every mile of ground it runs — reckoning one way, or 

 ' one side of the ground.' ^ Proprietors of coaches have at 



1 For example, from London to Shrewsbury is a hundred and fifty-eight 

 miles, and the number of horses kept for the Wonder coach is a hundred 



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