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to meet him "with lanthorns and long poles" to help him
on his way. In fact, the coaches and six, which we, in the
present generation, are apt to regard as an ostentatious display,
were in reality an absolute necessity for travelling in
comparative comfort, so bad was the general condition of the
roads. Two days appear to have been regarded as a fair time,
at the close of the seventeenth century, for the journey
between Oxford and London, and the distance between Nottingham
and London was not covered by coach in less than
four days during the winter months. Travelling by packhorse
was even more tedious, the journey from York to
London by that means occupying from fourteen to sixteen
days. The conveyance of letters was not much more expeditious,
except in special cases, until the close of the eighteenth century,
for it was not until the 2nd of August, 1784, that the
first mail coach left London for Bristol.
Nearly one hundred and twenty years had then elapsed
since the passing of the first Turnpike Act, and the means of
internal communication in England had consequently much
improved. Defective roads, however, were not the only drawback
to comfortable travelling, for the highwayman and footpad
were factors to be reckoned with. No longer back than 1774,
two men were executed at Tyburn for robbing the stage as
near London as Knightsbridge. A further illustration of
the insecurity of the road, is afforded by the proprietors of
Sadler's Wells announcing about the middle of the eighteenth
century that on fete nights a horse patrol will be sent in the
New Road for the protection of the nobility and gentry who
go from the squares and that end of the town, and that the
road to the City will be also guarded. Travelling was far too
serious an undertaking to justify an annual outing of the
citizen, or an annual visit to London by even the wealthier of
the country people. Many persons, in the ordinary walk of
life, never travelled more than a few miles from home, or