roper
functionary on the premises, fails to present this book and require
the traveler to sign his name in it, he (the arrant violator of laws)
is fined; but the traveler need not flatter himself that the rule does
not work both ways, for he also is fined if he refuses or
intentionally neglects to write his name in the said book. The number
of horses to be kept at fast stations is fixed by law, and no traveler
is to be detained more than a quarter of an hour, unless in certain
cases, when he may be detained half an hour. At a slow station he must
not be detained over three hours--such is the utmost stretch of the
law. Think of that, ye Gothamites, who complain if you are detained
any where on the face of the earth three minutes--only detained three
hours every eight or ten miles! But for delay occasioned by any
insuperable impediment, says the Norwegian law-book--such as a storm
at sea, or too great a distance between the inns--no liability is
incurred on either side. A Philadelphia lawyer could drive
six-and-thirty coaches-and-four, all abreast, through such a law as
that, and then leave room enough for a Stockton wagon and mule-team
on each side. Who is to judge of the weather or the distance between
the inns? When the traveler holds the reins he is responsible for the
horse, but when the post-boy does the holding, he, the said boy, is
the responsible party. Should any post-horse be ill treated or
overdriven when the traveler holds the reins, so that, in the language
of the law, "the station-holder, inn-keeper, or two men at the next
station can perceive this to be the case, the traveler shall pay for
the injury according to the estimation of these men, and he shall not
be allowed to be sent on until the payment is made." The traveler pays
all tolls and ferry charges. "When the road is very hilly, or is in
out-of-the-way districts where there are but few horses in proportion
to the travel, and the distance between the stations is unusually
long, or under other circumstances where the burden on the people
obligated to find horses is evidently very oppressive, etc.," "it may
be ordered by the king, after a declaration to that effect has been
procured by the authorities, that payment for posting may be reckoned
according to a greater distance, in proportion to the circumstances,
as far as double the actual distance."

In addition to all these formidable regulations--against which it
seems to me it would be impossible fo