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318
The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
·
James Wilson Hyde
10
Horse-tracks
in
summer
and
rivulets
in
winter,
the
earth
became
gradually
worn
into
these
deep
furrows,
many
of
which
in
Wilts,
Somerset,
and
Devon,
represent
the
tracks
of
roads
as
old
as,
if
not
older
than,
the
Conquest."
And
again:
"Similar
roads
existed
until
recently
in
the
immediate
neighbourhood
of
Birmingham,
long
the
centre
of
considerable
traffic.
The
sandy
soil
was
sawn
through,
as
it
were,
by
generation
after
generation
of
human
feet,
and
by
pack-horses,
helped
by
the
rains,
until
in
some
places
the
tracks
were
as
much
as
from
twelve
to
fourteen
yards
deep."
In
the
year
1690,
Chancellor
Cowper,
who
was
then
a
barrister
on
circuit,
thus
wrote
to
his
wife:
"The
Sussex
ways
are
bad
and
ruinous
beyond
imagination.
I
vow
'tis
melancholy
consideration
that
mankind
will
inhabit
such
a
heap
of
dirt
for
a
poor
livelihood.
The
country
is
a
sink
of
about
fourteen
miles
broad,
which
receives
all
the
water
that
falls
from
two
long
ranges
of
hills
on
both
sides
of
it,
and
not
being
furnished
with
convenient
draining,
is
kept
moist
and
soft
by
the
water
till
the
middle
of
a
dry
summer,
which
is
only
able
to
make
it
tolerable
to
ride
for
a
short
time."
In
Scotland,
about
the
same
time,
the
roads
were
no
better.
The
first
four
miles
out
of
Edinburgh,
on
the
road
towards
London,
were
described
in
the
Privy
Council
Record
of
1680
to
have
been
in
so
wretched
a
state
that
passengers
were
in
danger
of
their
lives,
"either
by
their
coaches
overturning,
their
horse
falling,
their
carts
breaking,
their
loads
casting
and
horse
stumbling,
the
poor
people
with
the
burdens
on
their
backs
sorely
grieved
and
discouraged;
moreover,
strangers
do
often
exclaim
thereat."
Nor
does
there
appear
to
have
been
any
considerable
improvement
in
the
state
of
the
roads
in
the
northern
kingdom
for
long
afterwards,
as
we
find
that
in
1750,
according
to
Lang's
'Historical
Summary
of
the
Post-office
in
Scotland,'
"the
channel
of
the
river
Gala,
which
ran
for
some
distance
parallel
with
the
road,
was,
when
not
flooded,
the
track
chosen
as
the
most
level
and
the
easiest
to
travel
in."
The
common
carrier
from
Edinburgh
to
Selkirk,
a
distance
of
thirty-eight
miles,
required
a
fortnight
for
the
journey,
going
and
returning;
and
the
stage-coach
from
Edinburgh
to
Glasgow
took
a
day
and
a
half
for
the
journey.
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