24 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



Now began a settled course of acceleration of pace 

 and improvement of vehicle and service. The Duke 

 of Eichmond, as Postmaster-General, turned to the 

 work with energy and skill. 



In 1834, M. de Haussez, a French politician, pub- 

 lished a long account of his visit to England in the 

 previous year. The labours of the Post-Office had 

 already borne fruit. He described the English mail- 

 coach as an elegant carriage, and admired alike 

 horses, harness, and roads. He thought, however, 

 that the French diligence got over the ground as 

 quickly as the English coach. But it was found 

 that while the English mail ran at an average speed, 

 including stoppages, of nine or ten miles an hour, the 

 inalle iwste in France travelled only four or five miles 

 an hour, and at its best six. 



K\\ the same, the service was not without its 

 hostile critics. The foreigner, indeed, gave us better 

 w^ords than our own familiar friends ; inasmuch as 

 the Quarterly Review, in 1837, when locomotion by 

 road was at its best, took a gloomy view of the 

 dangers of stage-coach, if not of mail-coach travelling. 

 It wrote : 



' Yet notwithstanding the moral improvement of the drivers, 

 the improved construction of the coaches, and the improved 

 state of the highroads throughout the kingdom, stage-coach 

 travelhng is more dangerous than it ever was before, owing 

 to the unmerciful speed of the swift coaches and the unmerciful 

 loads which arc piled upon the others, like Pelion upon Ossa, 

 •or suspended from them wherever they can be hung on. 



' " Coachman," said an outside passenger to one who was 



