of
the numerous Packmen who travelled on the Bristol and Western Road.

By 1742 a stage-coach left London at seven every morning, stayed for
dinner at noon in Uxbridge, arrived at High Wycombe by four in the
afternoon, and rested there all night, proceeding to Oxford the next
day. Men were content to get to York in six days, and to Exeter in a
fortnight.

In 1760, in consequence of frequent complaints as to the dilatoriness
of the postal service, the authorities in London announced that letters
or packets would thenceforth be dispatched from the capital to the chief
provincial towns "at any hour without loss of time," at certain
specified rates. An express to Bristol was to cost L2 3s. 6d.; to
Plymouth, L4 8s. 9d. Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, were not
even mentioned.

The mail-coach system had its origin in the West of England, and Bristol
and Bath in particular are associated with all the traditions of the
initiatory stages, so that the details on record in ancient newspapers
of those cities are copious.

Mr. John Weeks, who entered upon "The Bush," Bristol, in 1772, after
ineffectually urging the proprietors to quicken their speed, started a
one-day coach to Birmingham himself, and carried it on against a bitter
opposition, charging the passengers only 10s. 6d. and 8s. 6d. for inside
and outside seats respectively, and giving each one of them a dinner and
a pint of wine at Gloucester into the bargain. After two years'
struggle, his opponents gave in, and one-day journeys to Birmingham
became the established rule.

[Illustration: [_From "Stage Coach and Mail," by permission of Mr. C.G.
Harper._

JOHN PALMER AT THE AGE OF 17.]

Soon after this period, John Palmer, of Bath, came on the scene. He had
learnt from the merchants of Bristol what a boon it would be if they
could get their letters conveyed to London in fourteen or fifteen hours,
instead of three days. John Palmer was lessee and manager of the Bath
and Bristol theatres, and went about beating up actors, actresses, and
companies in postchaises, and he thought letters should be carried at
the same pace at which it was possible to travel in a chaise. He devised
a scheme, and Pitt, the Prime Minister of the day, who warmly approved
the idea, decided that the plan should have a trial, and that the first
mail-coach should run between London and Bristol. On Saturday, July 31,
1784, an agreement was signed in connection with Palmer's scheme under