and a half. Mr. Harris, in his old coaching days, says that "this coach was horsed by a man named Israel Alexander and started from the Three Tuns,' in Aldgate, close to Mrs. Nelson's." This coach went down to Brighton on the opening day of Parliament with a copy of the King's Speech in three hours and forty minutes; this was at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, a very great speed for a coach to maintain throughout an entire journey, although nothing compared with the speed of an express train. The only present mode of travelling as regards speed that can be compared to coaching is the rate at which steamboats travel. On one or two occasions the White Star vessels, and other ocean steamers, have averaged fifteen knots across the Atlantic; but there is no limit to the speed of a locomotive. Stephenson's "Rocket," when on its trial attached to a train only, went twelve and a half miles an hour, but afterwards by itself it steamed at the rate of twenty-nine miles. This was looked upon at that time as a remarkable feat, but it afterwards attained a speed of sixty miles. The locomotives drawing express trains travel generally at about fortyfive miles an hour; but this speed is equal frequently to sixty-five miles an hour, or nearly 100 feet in a second, that is if the locomotive were not attached to a train. Provided that the line is clear, that the rails are in good condition, and that no stoppages are to be made, there is no saying at what speed a locomotive might not travel, either by itself, or with one or two carriages attached. Much has been said and written about Pneumatic Railways; and, although several trials have been made of the Pneumatic Railway, no one as yet has been able to overcome the friction or provide

The above engraving represents GEORGE STEPHENSON'S LOCOMOTIVE, the

ROCKET," which gained the prize of £500 awarded by the directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company, having, on its trial, which took place on the 8th of October, 1829, run at the speed of 29 miles per hour with a load of 13 tons attached. When afterwards running without any load attached to it, it accomplished the then extraordinary speed of 35 miles an hour. Although it was not the first locomotive that had been made, yet it was the first of any importance, and it has proved the forerunner of the railway system throughout the world.

!

[To face fage 75.

ROAD VERSUS RAIL.

75

a means of preventing the escape of air, so detrimental to their success. Before further trials are made it would be well to see if trains could not run at a higher speed than they do now without running off the line. But I will speak of this in another chapter.

To return to the speed of coaches. As I have said, the Brighton "Quicksilver," on one occasion, ran to Brighton in three hours and forty minutes; everything, of course, was ready on the road for expediting the journey in every possible way. At the present time, on the South-Eastern line, some of the trains are so slow, that the coach to Tunbridge Wells took very little longer than the train; and in many parts of England, on various lines, the trains are frequently so slow that a well-horsed and welldriven coach could travel nearly as fast.

The time allowed for the mail-coach from London to Edinburgh was forty-two hours and twenty-three minutes; the time for the return journey from Edinburgh to London was forty-five hours and thirty-nine minutes. The distance, according to Paterson, is about 380 miles; but it varies according to the route taken, the most direct being by Catterick and Jedburgh, which is 367 miles, whereas by Coldstream it is 380 miles, and by Berwick 391 miles, and lastly, by the A.B.C. time-table, from the Great Northern terminus at King's Cross via York, it is 397 miles, and from St. Pancras via the Midland Railway by Carlisle, 404 miles. The Great Northern takes ten hours, and the Midland also takes about ten hours in performing the journey, consequently by coach it took about four times as long as by

rail.

The Exeter coach, the "Telegraph," of which I

have spoken elsewhere,* when horsed by Mrs. Nelson and Mr. Sherman, took seventeen hours in going from London to Exeter, a distance by road of 165 miles by the time-bill, according to Paterson it is 172 miles, by rail from Waterloo it is 1711⁄2 miles, and from Paddington 1934. The coach used to leave the "Bull Inn," Aldgate, at half-past four in the morning, and quitted Piccadilly at half-past five.

or sea.

It must be remembered that the King or Queen's highway was the only route by which, in those days, one could travel, except it were to journey by river The railroad is now connected inseparably in our minds with all idea of travel, and our almost daily acquaintance with the iron road has caused all questions respecting distance to be associated in our thoughts with the time trains take to perform the journey; consequently, the intention of going any distance is regarded by us, to carry it into effect, as necessitating the occupation of a certain period of time. This appears the more remarkable, when we consider the various ways in which the hour or the passage of time has been mentioned at various periods of history.

Our forefathers used to speak of four or five a.m. or p.m., as four or five of the clock, and according to the hour mentioned, a number of quaint phrases were used to denominate the time. Our "o'clock" is is evidently a corruption of their mode of speaking when saying of the clock.

But nothing is a greater evidence of the improvement we have undergone as regards the utilisation of time, than the way in which the time of departure or arrival of trains is mentioned in our railway time

* See page 73.