for, if they had been in good condition, one-third that number would have been sufficient.

In 1673 stage-coaches were introduced. It then cost forty shillings in summer, and forty-five in winter, to go from London to Exeter, Chester, or York, (distance to Exeter, 172 miles; to Chester, 181 miles; to York, 197 miles,) and a shilling to each coachman: in summer the journey took up four days, and in winter six days.

Stage-coaches were introduced into Scotland in 1678. The principal roads in the north of Scotland were mere track-ways

till 1732.

SEDAN CHAIRS.

IN 1626 Sir Saunders Duncombe introduced sedan chairs; certainly, for fashionable visiting, in full dress or high state, for either male or female, (for both sexes used them,) they were unique. They were carried by Irishmen. A lady could walk into one of them (they are now in use at Bath, Brighton, and in London, though smaller, and glazed, and even more elegant than the one given below) as it stood in her own hall or

passage.

"A guarded lackey to run before it, and pied liveries to come trashing after," with a link, if at night. Take you to your place of visit, and, if needful, into the very room where the party were assembled, and there set you down just in the same

state, in defiance of all weather, as when you left your dressingroom; and fetch you away again in the same manner. One could be engaged for the week for twenty-one shillings, or one shilling an hour. If that is not a luxurious sort of locomotion, I know not what is.

POST-CHAISES.

IN 1734 John Tull introduced post-chaises. This is a light travelling four-wheeled carriage, for two persons, which innkeepers provide as well as horses.

"Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a pleasuring."

Lord Byron wrote this line when he first went travelling into Spain, 1809; although he says the roads were good. Let us see what they were in the south of England in 1703. In that year Prince George of Denmark and suite had to travel from Windsor, in Berkshire, to Petworth, in Sussex, a journey of only forty miles, which took seventeen hours: frequently his carriages stuck fast in the mire, and some of them were overturned; and the carriage in which was the prince would have experienced the same fate, had not the country people propped and poised it frequently from Godalming, in Surrey, nearly to Petworth. The last nine miles occupied six hours.

But overturns and broken limbs were not the only or worst evils to be met with in such a migration; for all the great approaches to the capital, particularly Bagshot Heath, Hounslow Heath, Popham-lane, and Shooters Hill, (in Kent, six or seven miles only from London,) were infested with foot-pads or mounted highwaymen so late as 1739, either singly or in small bodies; and the daily prints contained accounts of robberies committed upon the travellers or the mails, and sanguinary encounters with robbers were frequent.

"The style in which Sir Francis Wronghead and his family travelled, however laughable, (bating a little stage extravagance,) was not unusual with persons of his rank. Two strong cart-horses were added to the four geldings which drew the ponderous family carriage, with an array of trunks and boxes; while seven living souls, besides a lap-dog, were stowed within. The danger of famine was averted by a travelling larder of baskets of plum cakes, Dutch ginger-bread, Cheshire_cheese, Naples biscuit, neats tongues, and cold boiled beef. The risk of sickness provided against by bottles of usquebaugh, black cherry brandy, cinnamon water, sack, tent, or strong beer; while the convoy was protected by a Turkish cimeter, a

a polished, brass-barrelled, bell-mouthed blunderbuss, a bag of bullets, and a great horn of powder."*

I give the following horrible account of travelling in Scotland, from the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. ii., new series, 1834. It is an extract from the "Diary of a lover of literature," dated July 3d, 1807. The writer is a Mr. Green. "Dined at the White Horse: Mr. related the following extraordinary adventure, which came, he said, from two friends," (the editor of the magazine, in a note, says that no reasonable doubt of its truth can be entertained,) "which happened half a century ago: Going from Berwick to Edinborough, a stormy night compelled them to put up at a solitary inn some miles short of where they intended to stop. The looks of the people were ferocious, and their manners suspicious and uncouth. They were unaccountably impressed, from its strange aspect and peculiar taste, that the meat-pie, which was the only thing they could procure for supper, was composed of human flesh. As the evening continued tempestuous, they ordered beds; (they were apprehensive of precipitating their danger by an immediate departure.) Several circumstances heightened their suspicion, and the hideous sight, through a crevice of their apartment, of a woman sharpening a long case-knife in an adjoining room, increased their alarm. They contrived to make their escape, leaving their horses and baggage; and, quitting the high-road, endeavoured to make their way across the country, to the next town. They had not advanced far before they found they were pursued by a blood-hound; but, by fording a river, they evaded the pursuit, and reached their intended destination. The story which they told increased the suspicions of the people of the town; many travellers, they said, had been strangely disposed of, and nothing ever heard of them. A search warrant was granted, the people of the house were secured, and on different parts of the premises the plunder of many passengers were found and the bodies discovered."

TURNPIKE-ROADS.

IN 1663 the first act of parliament was passed for levying tolls on turnpike-roads. The first turnpike act for Scotland was passed in 1750.

In 1819 there was a regular turnpike-road, and the mail travelled it from London to John O'Groat's house, a distance of eight hundred miles.

It was only about this period (1750) that the internal com* Vanbrugh's Journey to London.

merce of the country was carried on in wagons; of which some were very large, with wheels from three to four feet wide, which were called rollers, (they did not pay toll,) and drawn by eight or more large horses.

When Pennant visited Scotland, he went on horseback. There were no coaches north of the city of York in 1770.

I will now give some statistics of English road travelling, from John McNeil, the engineer of the Holyhead road, 1831. He says, "The weight of a four horse English stage-coach varies from 153 cwt. to 18 cwt., (of 112lbs. to the hundred ;) they carry from 2 tuns 5 cwt., to 2 tuns, coach included; tire of the wheel about two inches. The old mail-coaches weighed 20 cwt., or one tun. The mail-coaches since 1836 weigh only 17 cwt.; they sometimes carry a tun of letters and parcels: the tire is 24 inches. The vans, a carriage for light parcels, without passengers, average 4 tuns, carriage included: they travel six miles per hour. The present eight horse wagon and its load, four tuns, with nine inch wheels; six horse wagon and its load, 3 tuns, the wheels six inches; four horse wagon and its load, three tuns, the tire four inches. Farm wagons of Northamptonshire, 21 cwt., wheels three inches; carry from one to three tuns: they last about twenty years. The wear and tear of a mail or stage coach is supposed to consume about 10lbs. of iron every one hundred miles, from the tire, springs, horse-shoes, and traces. The tire lasts only from two to three months: coach-horses are shod every thirty days; wagonhorses every five weeks."

A great difference in the wear and tear of the wheels on railroads has been observed. A first class carriage, its weight 3 tuns, has run 25,000 miles, and has only lost 73lbs. from the tire; although it has a drag, which is occasionally used.

The mail-coaches were only introduced into Ireland in 1787. The journey from Dublin to Cork lasted from five to six days, often performed with one set of horses.

In the year 1838 a coach proprietor in London, named Chaplin, had thirteen hundred horses at work, five principal coach-yards, and two hotels.

If my opinion may be considered worth anything, I should say the American system of coach building is the best. I offer no opinion about the workmanship or durability, having had no experience; but in this part of the Union, where wood is cheap and iron dear, they use more iron. In England, where wood is dear and iron cheap, they use more wood; consequently, the American carriages have a lighter appearance. As the roads in England are for the most part better than here, the American system would seem better for that country, and the English for this.

CANALS.

THE Romans made the River Witham navigable from the city of Lincoln to the sea. In 1139 Turlough O'Conner had a canal dug from Balinasloe, on the River Suck, to Tuam, in Ireland. John Trew, a Welch engineer, made the River Exe navigable, with locks and sluices, 1563, from Exeter to the sea. The River Wey was made navigable, from Godalming to the Thames, by Sir Richard Weston, 1690. The Aire and Calder Canal, in Scotland, began in 1699. The River Avon, from Bath to Bristol, was opened 1727. But the Sankey Canal was begur. 1758, at the sole expense of the Duke of Bridgewater: Brindley was his engineer, who is justly called the father of inland navigation.

The great Caledonian Canal, which makes a continued line of inland communication from east to west across Scotland, through three lakes, was suggested in 1713, but not commenced till about 1800.

There are now in Great Britain 180 canals: their whole extent is 2682 miles; they pass through forty-eight tunnels under ground, whose joint length is thirty-two miles. The grand cost was thirty million pounds.

The English canals are not wider than forty feet, and from six to ten feet deep. The boats average about fourteen tuns, and tracked by only one horse, and travel from four to five miles per hour.

RAILROADS.

"The steam engine is the master-piece of human skill, and the most valuable present that was ever made by philosophy to the arts."-DR. BLACK.

THE first railroads were in the northern coal districts, about 1676: the wagons were drawn by one horse, taking as many as he could move slowly-weight perhaps forty tuns. A few years after, they began to use iron wheels; but it was about 100 years from the commencement before they began to plate the rails with iron. Such is the infancy of railroads. Trevethick, who died 1833, was the father of locomotives in 1805. There was one act of parliament for regulating a northern railroad in 1758, but no more till 1801, from which period we may begin to date railroad travelling.

The Liverpool and Manchester railroad carried at the rate of 1070 persons per day, without one stoppage, and only one loss of life, the first eighteen months after it was opened, 1834,