82 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



which the Foreign Office couriers travelled, the shorter 

 the road ^^a^the better. 



A by-road, called, as at Barnet, the New Eoad, w^as 

 accordingly cut, which branched off from the Eochester 

 High Street at Star Hill, ran at the back of Chatham 

 High Street, and overlooking the town and the Med- 

 way, ended at Chatham Hill on the Dover road. Here 

 a big mail-robbery once took place, to which I revert 

 further on.* 



Not much is altered in Canterbury since the 

 Eothschilds' expresses flew through St. George's 

 Gate, darting along the High Street, changing horses 

 perhaps at the Fountain (where I have stopped, and 

 which still lodges the visitor as well as it ever did), 

 or perhaps at the mail-coach inn next the Guildhall 

 — the Union, now a printing-office. Then, wdth fresh 

 and fiery energy, they galloped through St. Peter's, 

 and out on to the London road at St. Dunstan's, 

 the Eothschilds' boys paying toll at Harbledown 

 Turnpike, or plying the whip about Boughton Hill, 

 while the rather sluggish mail-coach was trundling 

 its w^heels over the first bridge across the little 

 Stour. 



None overtook the Eothschilds' expresses. There 

 is still living in Dover a post-boy, the last, or the 

 very last but one, of those early days — Mr. William 

 Gravenor. He rode the final express, in 1842, from 

 Dover to Canterbury — 15f miles — in, it is alleged, 

 the very short period of thirty- three minutes. The 



* See p. 84. 



