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The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
·
James Wilson Hyde
34
Indeed
the
charges
might
have
been
reckoned
by
time,
the
travelling
being
at
the
rate
of
about
10s.
a
day.
Another
advertisement
in
1739
thus
sets
forth
the
merits
of
some
of
the
stage-coaches
of
the
period:--
"Exeter
Flying
Stage-coach
in
three
days,
and
Dorchester
and
Blandford
in
two
days.
Go
from
the
Saracen's
Head
Inn,
in
Friday
Street,
London,
every
Monday,
Wednesday,
and
Friday;
and
from
the
New
Inn,
in
Exeter,
every
Tuesday
and
Thursday."
Then
the
advertisement
makes
known
the
fact,
with
regard
to
another
coach,
that
the
stage
begins
"Flying
on
Monday
next."
They
were
not
satisfied
in
those
days
with
a
coach
"going,"
"running,"
or
"proceeding,"
but
they
set
them
"flying"
at
the
rates
of
speed
which
may
be
gathered
from
these
notices.
Nearly
thirty
years
later
another
advertisement
set
forth
that
the
Taunton
Flying
Machine,
hung
on
steel
springs,
sets
out
from
the
Saracen's
Head
Inn,
in
Friday
Street,
London,
and
Taunton,
every
Monday,
Wednesday,
and
Friday,
at
three
o'clock
in
the
morning,
the
journey
taking
two
days.
There
were
places
inside
for
six
passengers,
and
the
fares
were
as
follows,
viz.:--
To
Taunton,
L1
16
0
"
Ilminster,
1
14
0
"
Yeovil,
1
8
0
"
Sherborne,
1
6
0
"
Shaftesbury,
1
4
0
Outside
passengers,
and
children
in
the
lap,
were
half
these
fares.
To
follow
out
in
a
historical
fashion
the
development
of
the
coaching
period
down
to
the
introduction
of
railways,
would
be
beyond
the
purpose
of
this
work,
nor
will
the
limits
of
these
pages
admit
of
so
great
an
extension
of
the
subject.
The
earlier
modes
of
travelling,
and
the
difficulties
of
the
roads,
are
treated
of
in
several
histories
of
England
in
a
general
way,
and
more
fully
in
such
books
as
the
'Lives
of
the
Engineers,'
by
Smiles;
'Old
Coaching
Days,'
by
Stanley
Harris;
and
'Annals
of
the
Road,'
by
Captain
Malet,--all
of
which
contain
much
that
is
entertaining
and
interesting.
Here
it
is
proposed
merely
to
recall
some
of
the
incidents
of
the
coaching
days,
so
far
as
they
relate
to
the
mail-service,
between
the
time
when
Palmer's
mail-coaches
were
put
on
the
road
in
1784,
down
to
the
time
when
they
were
shouldered
off
the
road
by
the
more
powerful
iron
horse.
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