SNOW 47 



This was Mr. J. H. Newman, some time Surveyor of 

 the South-eastern Postal District of England, and 

 now residing at Dorking, in Surrey. Mr. Newman 

 recollects that, due to the roads being heavy and 

 obstructed with snow, he did not reach York until 

 Friday, the 30th, instead of Wednesday, Decem- 

 ber 28. 



Again the mail-guards repeated the story of de- 

 votion to duty. Webb, who left St. Martin's-le- 

 Grand at eight p.m. on Tuesday, February 2, did not 

 reach Bath until four p.m. the next day ; he turned 

 back with the up-mail the same night, and arrived at 

 the Post-Office only at noon on Thursday — that is to 

 say, after forty hours' exposure to the weather, two 

 nights being spent on the top of his coach. 



The guard (Cox) of the up Bristol coach, of the 

 night of February 2, brought his mails into St. 

 Martin's-le-Grand at one p.m. on the 3rd, five hours 

 and fifty-seven minutes late. The marvel is that 

 he brought them in at all. At Calne the coach had 

 become blocked in a snow-drift. Cox procured a light 

 cart, and started a post-boy on horseback as pilot in 

 front. They struggled on until within two hundred 

 yards of Beckhampton Inn and the Waggon and 

 Horses (which latter was surely just what they stood 

 in need of) on the Downs ; there, within sight of the 

 cheering lights of both, the post-boy and his horse 

 fell headlong together into a drift, and the cart could 

 be got no further. 



Then the guard abandoned the vehicle, mounted 



