The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

He was clothed in black, and appointed in all things like another St George. He had a brave Montero on his head, and was a merry fellow, fancied he made a figure, and seemed mightily pleased with himself." Unlike travelling in the present day, when one may go 100 miles in a railway carriage without speaking to a fellow-passenger, the journey in the old-fashioned waggon brought all the travellers too close and too long together to admit of individual isolation, for the passengers might be associated for days together as companions, had to take their refreshment together, lived as it were in common, and it was even the custom to elect a chairman at the outset to preside over the company during the journey. But the stage-coach gradually became the established public conveyance of the country, improving in its construction and its rate of progression as the improved state of the roads admitted of and encouraged such improvement. Still, compared with the stage-coaches of the best period, travelling by the earlier stage-coaches was a sorry achievement. Here is an advertisement of stage-coaches of the year 1658:-- "From the 26th April there will continue to go stage-coaches from the George Inn, without Aldersgate, London, unto the several cities and towns, for the rates and at the times hereafter mentioned and declared:-- "Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday--To Salisbury, in two days, for xx. s.; to Blandford and Dorchester, in two days and half, for xxx. s.; to Burput, in three days, for xxx. s.; to Exmister, Hunnington, and Exeter, in four days, for xl. s.; to Stamford, in two days, for xx. s.; ... to York, in four days, for xl. s."