Stage-Coach and Mail in Days of Yore (Volume 2); A Picturesque History of the Coaching Age (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II1 DOWN THE BOAD IN DAYS OF VO11E II.?From London To Newcastlk-on-tyne In 1830 We also will make a tour down the road. It shall not be, in the strictly accurate sense of the word, a "journey," for we shall travel continuously by night as well as day?a thing quite unknown when that word was first brought into use, and unknown to coaching until about 1780, when coaches first began to go both day and night, instead of inning at sundown at some convenient hostelry on the road. It matters little what road we take, but as Mr. Murray came to town from Newcastle, we may as well pay a return visit along that same highway?the Great North Road. He does not explain how he came through Highgate, but for our part, the first sixty miles or so go along the Old North Road, and we do not touch Highgate at all. Now, since we are setting out merely for the purpose of seeing something of what life is like on a great highway, there is no need to mortify the flesh by arising early in the blushing hours of dawn, to the tune of the watchman's cry of" five o'clock and a fine morning ! " and so we will e'en, like Christians and Britons able to call their souls their own, go by the afternoon coach. Let the " Lord Nelson" in this year 1830 go if it will from the "Saracen's Head," Snow Hill, at half-past six in the morning. For ourselves, we will wait until a quarter to three in the afternoon, and take the " Lord Wellington " from the "Bull and Mouth." We can do no better, for the " Lord Wellington " goes the 271 miles in 30 hours, which a simple calculation resolves into 9 miles an hour, including stops. The fare to Newcastle is 5 15s. inside, or about 5rf. a mile. Outside, it is 3 10s., or a fraction over 3d. a mile. As our trip is taken in summertime, we will go outside; and so, al...