VIA ST. ALBANS 167 



On ascending the opposite slope, a post-chaise drew 

 near. Again the sidUng process was gone through. 

 Now, however, blunderbusses were thrust through the 

 window, and threats were used that, unless the alarmed 

 rider drew off, the inmates would fire upon him. 



At Whetstone or at Barnet the Scotchman lost no 

 time in selling his horse for the best price he could 

 get, being careful in his next purchase to avoid a 

 steed which gave any sign of being acquainted with 

 the habits of knights of the road. 



The vigorous overflow of the population of London, 

 as soon as the century had turned, began rapidly to 

 people suburban parts, and the highroads out of 

 London lost the lonely air which hitherto had marked 

 them. 



'I went to England again on a short visit in 

 1829,' wrote Mr. Eichard Eush, an envoy from the 

 United States. ' I was amazed at the increase of 

 London. . . . Finchley Common, desolate in 1819, 

 was covered with neat cottages, even villages.' 



This process went on more rapidly still after the 

 opening of the Great Northern Eailway to Highgate 

 and Finchley; but about the fifties, when Macnamara's 

 Eoyal Day Mail was the principal road conveyance to 

 and from London and Barnet, Finchley Common, 

 to the confines of Whetstone, had still long lines 

 of hedges unbroken by a single house. This is not 

 the case now. 



'A few years ago,' wrote the late Louisa, Mar- 

 chioness of Waterford, ' I thought I would post down 



