CHAPTEE XIV. 



EXPBESSBS PAST AND PRESENT. 



As it is intended that this book shall in some measure 

 contain useful and authentic records relative to travel- 

 ling prior to the railway era, a few time-tables of 

 some of the most important mails, such as the London 

 and Edinburgh, the London and Glasgow, and the 

 Holyhead and London, together with those of two 

 or three other mails and some coaches, will be in- 

 cluded, in order to give a correct idea of the time 

 occupied in the transit of correspondence from one 

 place to another, and also the time required for 

 ordinary travellers to go from place to place by con- 

 veyances less expeditious or punctual than the mail- 

 coaches. 



Very curious and different are the meanings 

 attached to the term ' express ' as used with respect 

 to travelling now, and rather less than sixty years 

 ago. If a person speaks of sending by, or travelling 

 by, the express, it at once conveys an idea of the rate 



18—2 



