GENERAL.'- 40S 



I question very much whether one only of these 

 long trains does not convey more persons to places 

 upwards of 150 miles from London than were taken 

 by all the coaches and mails travelling between them 

 in one day. 



You might almost count on your fingers the 

 number of coaches running right through daily with- 

 out any change to places as far distant from London 

 as York, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, and Exeter — 

 all of them large towns. There were, of course, 

 a great many intermediate coaches by which a person 

 might travel a hundred miles or less one day, and 

 then go on again the next — as, say, from London 

 to Birmingham on the first day, and thence to 

 Manchester or Liverpool, to which there were plenty 

 of coaches, on the second day ; and so with the other 

 towns. Then again, besides the coaches, there were 

 the various other means of getting along the road, 

 such as in private carriages, either with their owners' 

 horses, travelling a short distance daily, or with post- 

 horses ; all the posting, pure and simple, in the 

 old yellow post-chaise ; the commercial travellers 

 with their ' traps,' as this was the mode of travelling 

 almost universally adopted by them ; and a host 

 of vehicles of various sorts and descriptions. The 

 above comprise pretty nearly all the persons who 

 would be travelling along the main roads, except 



