into one day! Fifty-five miles between sunrise
and sunset! What incredible swiftness!
Would that a picture of this wondrous
machine had been preserved; although from
representations of later specimens, we can
make a picture of it for ourselves, as it stood
at the door of the tavern over against All
Souls College, on that eventful morning. A
huge wooden box, covered with leather, not
much unlike the Lord Mayor's state coach,
minus the painting, the gilding, and the carvings;
with a great length of axletree, the wheels
seeming to run away from the coach, and
the coach box a veritable box, filled with
ropes, and spare traces, and hammer, and
screw drivers, and nails—contingencies of a
journey to London with several breaks-down
inevitable. It was intended to carry six, the
usual number; and, as worthy Antony informs
us, it had a boot on each side: an ugly
projection, not unlike a small sentry box at
each door, in which additional passengers
were sometimes stowed, but intended, in this
flying coach probably for luggage. Master
Antony à Wood, bound to London to consult
the Cotton manuscripts, Mr. Halloway, a
counsellor of Oxford (afterwards a judge),
and four university men, took  their seats;
and then, according to the vice chancellor's
especial order, precisely as St. Mary's chimes
tolled six, off went the flying coach into High
Street, with its precious freight, followed
doubtless, by the anxious fears of a wondering
crowd as to whether it would make its
appearance in London, by the appointed
time—seven in the evening—without some
dreadful accident.

Over Magdalen bridge, over Shotover
Hill, along the pleasant road, startling the
rustics as it flew. The public of High
Wycombe and Beaconsfield, where the
passengers, in the old time, put up for the night,
came out to gaze at it. Through Uxbridge and
Acton, while the sun was yet high, along by
desolate Shepherd's Bush, by the lonely gravelpits,
past the gallows at Tyburn, past the Lord
Mayor's banqueting house, where that
honored dignitary was accustomed to take his
spiced cake and cool tankard after hunting
the hare in Marylebone fields, and finally
  down into the Haymarket, then full of inns,
because of the market for hay. There,
punctually  and wonderfully, by seven of the clock,
Master Antony informs us, "we were all set
down at our inn."

Whether Oxford, although never remarkable
for go-a-head ways, took the initiative
in this flying coach movement, we know not;
but, from the Oxford historian, we have the
first account of this neck-or-nothing travelling.
We find from him too, that the
experiment answered well, while from other
sources we learn that nearly every town within
fifty or sixty miles of the metropolis soon
boasted a similar conveyance. Even Chester
and Exeter were brought within three days'
journey of London. Such innovations could
not be passed quietly over, by those who had
vested interests in pack horses and pillions,
in waggons, and in all the other good old
ways of travelling. Justices at quarter
sessions  denounced these flying coaches as the
ruin of the country, offering temptations to
country squires and squiresses to spend their
money in London. Horse-furniture makers,
and carriers who, like Hobson, kept so
many nags for riders, but did not possess a
horse of their own, joined in the outcry.
But, the public paid little heed, and went on
establishing and patronising flying coaches in
all directions. Rapid journeys to Reading
could be had for seven shillings; to Oxford
for ten shillings; to Northampton for sixteen
shillings. The fares of coaches that performed
their journeys in two days were from London
to Bath twenty shillings; to Bristol and
to Salisbury twenty-five shillings. There
were, however, other expenses, in the form
of fees to coachmen, which the indignant
writer, from whose little pamphlet we have
obtained the foregoing list of prices, carefully
sets forth; it being his especial endeavour
to prove that Flying Coaches are a pestilent
invention, injurious alike to horses and
men, to his Majesty's excise, to his liege
subjects' health and comfort, indeed to the
best interests of the realm by land and by
water.

This little pamphlet, by one John Cresset, is
probably unique. The title is "Reasons for
Suppressing such Stage Coaches and Caravans
as are unnecessary;" and the date is sixteen
hundred and seventy-two. The reader will
perceive that the very title begs the question;
but, logic has no share in John Cresset's
composition, which is a specimen of a kind of
argumentation not unknown to country
gentlemen, even in the present day. That
these coaches, especially when set up within
forty or fifty miles of London, are one of the
greatest mischiefs that have of late years
happened to the kingdom, is the introductory
remark; and this is enforced by the
poser, What encouragement is there for any
man to breed horses, if that lazy habit of
riding to save their fine clothes be indulged
in; for there are not near a fourth part of the
saddle-horses that used to be kept? Then,
"even the largest stage coaches, the York,
Chester, and Exeter, each with forty horses
a-piece, carry eighteen passengers a week to
or from London, which comes to eighteen
hundred and seventy-two persons in the
year; now, would not these passengers
require many more horses if they rode? But
more, his Majesty's excise suffers, for now
four or five travel in a coach together, and
twenty or more in a caravan, gentlemen and
ladies, without servants, and consume little
drink on the road; now travelling on horseback
is drouthy work; moreover, if gentlemen
have their servants with them, they
must drink the excised ale and beer, instead
of the small drink brewed by their masters