46 THE COACHING AGE. 



the Park showed the great interest taken in them ; 

 in fact, a meet has now become one of the things of 

 the season which Society must attend. 



Anything at all like road-travelling — that is to say, 

 by a conveyance combining some degree of comfort 

 with a reasonable speed — was developed somewhat 

 suddenly, but disappeared still more suddenly. 



The improvement commenced about the year 1784, 

 when a Mr. John Palmer, who was the manager of 

 the Bath Theatre, having become connected with the 

 Post Office, succeeded, in the face of very strong 

 opposition and prejudice, in starting the first mail- 

 coach in substitution for the previous tardy and unsafe 

 mode of conveying the letters by boys, on what were 

 described as being 'worn-out hacks.' Mr. Pitt, who 

 was then in office, induced the Government to give 

 Mr. Palmer's scheme a trial ; although it was de- 

 clared to be ' an impossibility,' likely to lead to 

 crime, 'as when once desperate fellows had deter- 

 mined upon robbing the mail, resistance would lead 

 to murder.' For many years, however, after the 

 introduction of Palmer's system, no attempt was 

 made to rob the coaches. So bad, though, was the 

 state of the roads, even to nearly the end of the last 

 century, that it took a man two days and three 

 nights' incessant travelling to get from Manchester to 

 Glasgow in the coach, and a day and a half between 



