The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

The accidents that befell the coaches were sometimes of a really serious character, and of very frequent occurrence--some of them, or perhaps many of them, being due wholly to carelessness. A person writing in 1822 remarks as follows:--"It is really heartrending to hear of the dreadful accidents that befall his Majesty's subjects now on their travels through the country. In my younger days, when I was on the eve of setting out on a journey, my wife was in the habit of giving me her parting blessing, concluding with the words, 'God bless you, my dear; I hope you will not be robbed.' But it is now changed to 'God bless you, my dear; I hope you will not get your neck broke, and that you will bring all your legs safe home again.'" Sometimes the drivers, if it fell in their way to overtake or be overtaken by an opposition coach, would go in for proving who had the best team, and an exciting race would result. Sometimes a horse would fall, and bring the coach to grief; and in the night-time the horses would occasionally tumble over obstacles maliciously placed on the road to bring this about. Whether this was always done to facilitate robbery, or out of sheer wantonness, is not quite clear, but instances of such acts of wickedness were frequent.