The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

"Whereas Walter Price, the driver of the Chester and Manchester mail-coach, on Thursday night the 22d Nov. 1810, on arriving in Chester, incautiously left his horses without any person at their heads, to give out a passenger's luggage (while the guard was gone to the post-office with the mail-bags), when they ran off with the mail-coach through the city of Chester, taking the road to Holywell, but fortunately without doing any injury; in consequence of which neglect, the driver was, on the Saturday following, brought before the magistrates, and fined in the full penalty of Five pounds, according to the late Act of Parliament." And through the city of Chester, with its narrow streets! It seems a miracle how four runaway horses, with a coach at their heels, could have cleared the town without dire disaster. Again, it would come to pass that in dark nights the horses would sometimes stumble over a stray donkey or other animal which had taken up its night-quarters in the middle of the road, and there made its bed. Nor were these the only perils of the road, which were always increased when the nights were thick with fog. On the morning of the 30th December 1813, the mail from the South reached Berwick late owing to a fog, the horses being led by the driver, notwithstanding whose care the coach had been overturned twice. The drivers were called upon on occasions to make up their minds in a moment to choose one of two courses, when danger suddenly burst upon them and there was no escape from it. A good instance of such a case happened to the driver of the Edinburgh to Dumfries mail-coach, who proved that he could reason his case quickly and take his resolve. At one of the stages he had changed horses, and was proceeding on his way, the first portion of the road being down a steep hill with an abrupt turn at the foot. He had hardly got his coach fairly set in motion, when to his dismay he perceived that the wheelers, two new horses, had no notion of holding back. The animals became furious, while the passengers became alarmed.