372 THE COACHING AGE. 



It might also, perhaps, have the eflFect of making 

 the driver more careful in future, especially if the 

 accident had occurred through negligence or reck- 

 lessness. 



An account of a mail accident arising from fog, but 

 on another road, and nearer London, is given by Mr. 

 C. Ward, who was an eye-witness, and relates it to 

 show some of the difficulties that had to be encountered 

 in foggy weather.. He says : ' We were obliged to 

 be guided out of London by torches, seven or eight 

 mails following one after the other, the guard of the 

 foremost mail lighting the one following, and so 

 on till the last. We travelled at a slow pace like 

 a funeral procession. Many times I have been three 

 hours going from London to Hounslow. I remember 

 one very foggy night, instead of arriving at Bagshot (a 

 distance of thirty miles from London, and my 

 destination) at eleven o'clock, I did not get there 

 till one in the morning. I had to leave again at four 

 the same morning. On my way back to town, when 

 the fog was very bad, I was coming over Hounslow 

 Heath, when I reached the spot where the old powder- 

 mills used to stand. I saw several lights in the road, 

 and heard voices which induced me to stop. The 

 old Exeter mail, which left Bagshot thirty minutes 

 before I did, had met with a singular accident. It 

 was driven by a man named Gambler ; his leaders had 



