Notes and Queries, Number 03, November 17, 1849

Notes and Queries, Number 03, November 17, 1849

I suppose that the history of travelling in this country, from the Creation to the present time, may be divided into four periodsthose of no coaches, slow coaches, fast coaches, railways. Whether balloons, or rockets, or some new mode which as yet has no name, because it has no existence, may come next, I cannot tell, and it is hardly worth while to think about it; for, no doubt, it will be something quite inconceivable. The third, or fast-coach period was brief, though brilliant. I doubt whether fifty years have elapsed since the newest news in the world of locomotive fashion was, thatto the utter confusion and defacement of the "Sick, Lame, and Lazy," a sober vehicle so called from the nature of its cargo, which was nightly disbanded into comfortable beds at Newburya new post-coach had been set up which performed the journey to Bath in a single day. Perhaps the day extended from about five o'clock in the morning to midnight, but still the coach was, as it called itself, a "Day-coach," for it travelled all day; and if it did somewhat "add the night unto the day, and so make up the measure," the passengers had all the more for their money, and were incomparably better off as to time than they had ever been before. But after this many years elapsed before "old Quicksilver" made good its ten miles an hour in one unbroken trot to Exeter, and was rivalled by "young Quicksilver" on the road to Bristol, and beaten by the light-winged Hirondelle, that flew from Liverpool to Cheltenham, and troops of others, each faster than the foregoing, each trumpeting its own fame on its own improved bugle, and beating time (all to nothing) with sixteen hoofs of invisible swiftness. How they would have stared if a parliamentary train had passed them, especially if they could have heard its inmates grumbling over their slow progress, and declaring that it would be almost quicker to get out and walk whenever their jealousy was roused by the sudden flash of an express. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 11577
Author: Various
Release Date: Mar 1, 2004
Format: eBook
Language: English