COACH PROPRIETORS. 149 



The announcement alluding to the machine flying 

 from the Swan and Falcon, appears to have been com- 

 posed by some facetious individual ; so far as can be 

 ascertained from contemporary records of the pace of 

 the machines at that period, and the state of the roads, 

 there could have been but little flying about their 

 progress — one would be rather inclined to designate 

 it crawling ; three miles an hour, or something more, 

 I fancy, was about the rate of travelling. But by 

 this time the roads were, perhaps, beginning to im- 

 prove, as in 1784, only nine years later, the first 

 mail-coach was put upon the road. 



Some persons who probably were well acquainted 

 with Mr. Gray, and wished to have a joke with him, 

 sent him the following letter, evidently a hoax ; but 

 there was a Hereford night-coach called the ' Cham- 

 pion,' which ran from London to Hereford from the 

 Bolt-in-Tun. There was no date to the letter, but the 

 post-mark was Long Lane, Smithfield, 23rd December, 

 1834, and twopence paid : 



Sir, 



I think it right to inform you of a plan that four de- 

 termined and careless fellows are about to adopt, as by so doing 

 it will prevent you very serious disappointment to-morrow, and 

 we are perfectly safe, as by this time it will be impossible for you 

 to prevent its , being carried into execution. We are perfectly 

 aware that you and half London expect the 'Champion' to 

 arrive to-morrow filled in and out with Christmas baskets. So 

 do we ! and therefore intend to ease it of its load, which, from 



