Notes and Queries, Number 03, November 17, 1849
Various
Various
Notes and Queries, Number 03, November 17, 1849
TRAVELLING IN ENGLAND
I suppose that the history of travelling in this country, from the Creation to the present time, may be divided into four periods—those of no coaches, slow coaches, fast coaches, railways. Whether balloons, or rockets, or some new mode which as yet has no name, because it has no existence, may come next, I cannot tell, and it is hardly worth while to think about it; for, no doubt, it will be something quite inconceivable.
The third, or fast-coach period was brief, though brilliant. I doubt whether fifty years have elapsed since the newest news in the world of locomotive fashion was, that—to the utter confusion and defacement of the "Sick, Lame, and Lazy," a sober vehicle so called from the nature of its cargo, which was nightly disbanded into comfortable beds at Newbury—a new post-coach had been set up which performed the journey to Bath in a single day. Perhaps the day extended from about five o'clock in the morning to midnight, but still the coach was, as it called itself, a "Day-coach," for it travelled all day; and if it did somewhat "add the night unto the day, and so make up the measure," the passengers had all the more for their money, and were incomparably better off as to time than they had ever been before. But after this many years elapsed before "old Quicksilver" made good its ten miles an hour in one unbroken trot to Exeter, and was rivalled by "young Quicksilver" on the road to Bristol, and beaten by the light-winged Hirondelle, that flew from Liverpool to Cheltenham, and troops of others, each faster than the foregoing, each trumpeting its own fame on its own improved bugle, and beating time (all to nothing) with sixteen hoofs of invisible swiftness. How they would have stared if a parliamentary train had passed them, especially if they could have heard its inmates grumbling over their slow progress, and declaring that it would be almost quicker to get out and walk whenever their jealousy was roused by the sudden flash of an express.
Certainly I was among those who rejoiced in the increased expedition of the fast-coach period; not because I loved, but because I hated, travelling, and was glad to have periods of misery abridged. I used to listen with delight to the stories of my seniors, and to marvel that in so short a space of time so great an improvement had been made. One friend told me that in earlier life he had travelled from Gloucester to Hereford in a coach, which performed the journey of about thirty miles between the hours of five in the morning and seven in the evening. I took it for granted that they stopped on the road to dine, and spent a long afternoon in smoking, napping, or playing at bowls. But he would not acknowledge anything of the kind, and the impression on his mind was that they kept going (such going as it was), except during the time necessarily expended in baiting the horses, who, I think, were not changed—unless indeed it were from bad to worse by fatigue. Another friend, a physician at Sheffield, told me that one of the first times (perhaps he may have said, the first) that a coach started for London, he was a passenger. Without setting out unreasonably early in the morning, or travelling late at night they made such progress, that the first night they lay at Nottingham, and the second at Market Harborough. The third morning they were up early, and off at five o'clock; and by a long pull and a strong pull through a long day, they were in time to hear Bow Church clock strike eleven or twelve (I forget which) as they passed through Cheapside. In fact such things have always seemed to me to be worth noting, for you never can tell to what extent, or even in what direction, they may throw some little ray of light on an obscure point of history. On this principle I thought it worth while to copy an original bill which lately fell into my hands. Many such have been reprinted, but I am not aware that this one has; and as what is wanted is