STAGE-COACH
AND MAIL IN
DAYS OF YORE

THE MAIDENHEAD AND MARLOW POST-COACH, 1782.
From a contemporary painting.

STAGE-COACH
AND MAIL IN
DAYS OF YORE

A PICTURESQUE HISTORY
OF THE COACHING AGE

VOL. I

By CHARLES G. HARPER

Illustrated from Old-Time Prints
and Pictures

London:
CHAPMAN & HALL, Limited
1903

All rights reserved

PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

vii

PREFACE

“HANG up my old whip over the fireplace,”said Harry Littler, of the Southampton“Telegraph,” when the London and SouthamptonRailway was opened, in 1833,—“I shan’t want itnever no more”: and he fell ill, turned his face tothe wall, and died.

The end of the coaching age was a tragedy forthe coachmen; and even to many others, whosecareers and livelihood were not bound up with theold order of things, it was a bitter uprooting ofestablished customs. Many travellers were neverreconciled to railways, and in imagination dweltfondly in the old days of the road for the rest oftheir lives; while many more never ceased to recountstories of the p