In my first chapter I made a point of the fact that at the moment when travelling by mail coach had reached its highest point of excellence the coming of the railway gave the death-blow to the whole system. The long-distance traffic of this country was in the course of a few years diverted from the main roads, and for thirty years these thoroughfares, save for the local traffic between neighbouring places, were silent and unused. Nowhere was this revolution more noticeable than in the district round London. The Great North Road was perhaps the busiest of all the coach routes, and in 1832 no fewer than between fifty and sixty coaches, twenty of them mail coaches, ran on this road alone. At Barnet, the first stage out of London, the double trips resulted in a coach passing through the town in one direction or the other every quarter of an hour.

The coaching inn with its courtyard and fine stabling fell from its high estate, and a younger generation marvelled at the number of public-houses on a road with little or no traffic. They wondered, too, at the fine wide thoroughfares running through the country towns. Where was the traffic? Why the extravagance of space?

I suppose that as late as the year 1870 the life of the road appeared dead beyond recall, and nothing seemed more unlikely than that the coaching inn would come into favour again. The whole tendency of the time seemed to be to develop the traffic on the railway. Even walking appeared to be in danger of becoming a lost art.

Then in the early seventies began a little stream of bicycles along the forsaken highways: the stream grew and grew: tricycles came in, then safety bicycles, and ladies took to the wheel. Wayside inns began to find their use once more, and the road was alive again. Then arrived the motor, and we have now the astonishing result that on many routes out of London the quieter and least dangerous thoroughfare for foot passengers to cross is the railway.

But I am anticipating. I want to tell the story of the return of the Post Office to the road, and to draw an interesting parallel between the traffic of a hundred years ago and that of to-day. The first of John Palmer's mail coaches began to run in 1784, and the system lasted nearly sixty years. The determining cause which induced the Post Office to take to the road again was the introduction of the Parcel Post. The railway company receives 55 per cent. of the stamp value of every parcel, and as the collecting, sorting, and distributing expenses are heavy, the cost of transmitting parcels in this manner is considerable. The Post Office naturally dislikes to hand over to the railway companies postage which it can economically retain in its own hands, and it was to avoid the railway charges that road services, extending to places not exceeding fifty miles or thereabouts from London, were instituted. On the 1st June 1887, the revival of the road began for the Post Office, and a parcel mail coach service was started between London and Brighton. This was the Jubilee year, and the running of the new service attracted a great deal of public attention. In a short time there were coaches running from London Bridge to Tunbridge Wells and Chatham, and from Mount Pleasant to Watford, Colchester, Hertford, Ware with branches. There was a coach to Bedford with a branch to Cambridge, another from Paddington to Oxford via Reading, and yet others to Windsor and Guildford with services to Epsom and Leatherhead. These coaches, drawn by three or four horses, were in charge of guards who carried arms; and for more than ten years the resemblance between the old and the modern mail service was striking. The difference, and of course a very notable one, was that the modern coach carried no passengers. But it carried with it all the prestige of “His Majesty's Service,” and it maintained all the old traditions of speed and punctuality—so much so that the villagers on the route set their clocks when the mail passed.

The coming of the motor brought about another revolution. Many of my readers will remember the 14th November 1896, when a large number of motor carriages and vans assembled at Northumberland Avenue, Charing Cross, to celebrate by a run to Brighton the passing of the Act of Parliament which regulated the use of these vehicles. The Act came into operation on that day. Many of these motors never reached Brighton; they broke down at various points on the route; but the trip was an object-lesson to the British public of the possibilities of motor traffic. It impressed the Post Office authorities, who were among the first of the large business concerns in this country to adopt motor traction. As early as 1897 experimental trials were made between the General Post Office and the South-Western District Office, and between the latter office and Kingston-on-Thames. During the same year a steam motor was tried between London and Redhill, a distance of about 46 miles there and back. Experiments were also made with electric motors in different parts of the country at the same time.

There was a difficulty at the outset owing to the Board of Trade regulations which prohibited vans weighing more than 1½ tons (unladen) from travelling more than 8 miles an hour. Difficulty was experienced in constructing cars of sufficient carrying capacity which should be within the limit of weight. This restriction was afterwards removed, so that it has been possible to build much larger motors, timed to travel at a faster rate of speed.

In spite, however, of the numerous improvements in the mechanism of motors, the new method of traction was far from perfect for several years, and as late as 1902 the official report was, “So far no motor vehicle which has been found can be relied on to carry heavy mails with the same regularity as vans drawn by horses.” Even two years later, in 1904, the opinion held was “that motor vans were not so reliable as horse-drawn vehicles.”

It is obvious that what the Post Office required was regularity and certainty rather than speed for their parcels traffic, and so long as the motor was constantly liable to breakdowns and maintained uncertain speeds it was unsuitable.

The steam motor service between London and Redhill was only an experiment, and the horse-drawn vehicle maintained its old position on that route until 1902, when the improvements in motors justified the Post Office in starting a motor service. Since 1902 the London and Redhill service has been performed by motors. Since 1905 the Brighton service has been worked by motor van, the daily journey there and back being 109 miles. In the following year motor vans ran to Hastings, Tunbridge Wells, and Eastbourne. Then followed in three succeeding years new motor services to Ipswich, Southampton, Cambridge, Reading, Portsmouth, Oxford, Birmingham, Stony Stratford and Leicester, Tilbury, Aylesbury, Dover, and Ramsgate. In addition there were cross services between Manchester and Liverpool, Birmingham and Warwick and Worcester, Leeds and York, and a number of other places.

The distance covered by Post Office motor vans runs into several thousands of miles daily.

Motor vans can travel much faster than the old four-horse coaches. Palmer's idea of the ultimate speed of the mail coach was 10 miles an hour. This speed was often attained before 1840, but no doubt the average all over the country was more like 7 or 8 miles an hour. And this was the average speed of the Parcel Post horse-drawn coaches. The usual rate of the motor coaches is 10 miles an hour.

Another advantage claimed by motor vans compared with horse-drawn coaches is that they can carry heavier loads. The larger night vans can take a load of 2¼ tons as compared with 1½ tons, the carrying capacity of the old horse coaches.

Most of these motor mail coaches travel during the night. In the case of the long-distance services, such as London and Brighton, two vehicles are used, starting from each end of the journey, meeting half way. It is remarkable how little the place of meeting varies each journey. De Quincey, in a footnote to his essay on The English Mail Coach, remarks upon this same feature in the early years of the last century. “One case was familiar to mail coach travellers when two mails in opposite directions, north and south, starting at the same minute from points six hundred miles apart, met almost constantly at a particular bridge which bisected the total distance.”

These night motor coaches are timed to arrive at their destination so that the mails conveyed can be distributed by the first morning delivery. A guard accompanies most of the coaches, and in addition to looking after the safety of the mails and assisting in loading and unloading, he sorts parcels received from places en route for places served by the coach. These vehicles serve, therefore, a similar function to the Travelling Post Office.

The guards used to carry arms for defence in case of attack, but they are now only supplied with a truncheon and whistle.

The motor coaches are met at the more important cross roads by smaller motors and carts, with which they exchange mails. There is in this way a network of van services stretching over the whole country.

The silent highway is stirred into a sudden activity when the Post Office night motor van appears. Hundreds of haycarts make their way to London during the night-time along some of the Essex roads. The drivers of these carts work very long hours and often fall asleep. The horses sometimes stop and go to sleep also. These carts standing in the centre of the highway are often a source of danger to the motor mail vans, and we can imagine the feelings of a driver of one of the carts when awakened from a long sleep by the hoot of the motor, and perhaps realising that he is miles farther from his destination than he should be.

Hop-pickers in Kent frequently sleep at night with their heads under a hedge and their feet stretching into the roadway. Accidents have only been avoided through the alertness of the mail van drivers.

A great difference between driving a horse mail coach and a motor vehicle is that, in the case of the former, the horses can be trusted to find their own way if the driver dozed off for a moment. With motors, however, a similar lapse on the driver's part would spell disaster.

An old mail cart driver whom I once interviewed told me this story. “I was driving the mail one night from Chesham to Taplow, and arriving at Beaconsfield, which is nearly half way, I got down from my seat and went into the inn, saying to the Post Office official who was in attendance that he could take out the bag himself from the back of the car. He did so, and then shut down the lid of the mail box with a bang. This was sufficient notice to the horse that all was ready to start, and off he trotted without his driver, in the darkness of the night. Ten and a half miles was the distance he had to travel, and the horse knew his business as well as the required pace, and he trotted into Taplow station within a minute of his scheduled time.”

I asked the man if he got into trouble for the apparent neglect of his Majesty's mails. His face brightened up as the face of every official does when he recollects the sins he has committed which have not been found out.

“You see, sir, a porter was waiting for me at the station, and he wondered, but determined not to give the show away. He unloaded the mails as if nothing extraordinary was happening. Then he went in search of me. I walked the distance, full of terrible thoughts and gloomy fears.” And he added, “I wonder if these much-talked-of motor cars are likely to be of such service to the Post Office as my good old horse.”

Some time ago a motor mail van was coasting down a Kentish hill on a dark night, and at a bend of the road, the bright lights of the motor revealed a dark object lying right across the roadway. The powerful brakes were quickly applied, and the vehicle was pulled up just in time to avoid an accident. The obstacle was a railway sleeper, which had apparently been placed there by some miscreant with the idea of wrecking the mail. Several men were seen disappearing across the fields skirting the road when the motor stopped.

On another night a shot was fired at the same motor coach, only narrowly missing the driver, for the bullet passed through the glass window at his side. Both outrages are supposed to have been the work of the same persons, who had some grievance against the motor. They were perhaps making a last stand on behalf of their friends the horses. Country folk are conservative above all other people. The horse and cart is to them almost the divinely appointed means of transit, and to attempt to overthrow it is sacrilege. All other forms of locomotion are distasteful to the true countryman. “How did you like foreign parts?” asked a Kentish farmer of his labourer, who had been across to Boulogne. “Furrin parts was all right,” replied the labourer, “but that boat! Give me 'orse and cart, sir.”

One night a motor mail driver suddenly pulled up at what appeared to be an ordinary walking-stick lying across the road. On approaching nearer, to the consternation of the driver it glided rapidly away. The guard simply said “Snakes,” and this was the explanation.

The only light along the road for a great part of the way is that afforded by the motor's own lamps. Wonderful effects on the eye are often produced between lamplight and darkness, and commonplace objects often assume uncanny shapes and sizes. A number of heaps of stones intended for road-mending purposes had lain alongside a certain road for weeks. One night a motor van driver was startled by what appeared to be one of these heaps rising suddenly and approaching the coach. His heart went into his mouth, and he applied his brake, ready for a struggle with animated stones. And then to his relief—he was not anxious for miracles—an old white cow looked into his face; she had strayed on to the road; he had mistaken her for stones.

On some routes the guards of the motors have been employed for many years. These men seem to have inherited the superstitions common to the old postboys. On one of the roads out of London the following story is implicitly believed. A mail van travelling one night knocked down an old man with a long white beard, seriously injuring him. As the coach was fully loaded with the mails, there was no room for the injured man, so he was carefully laid by the roadside out of harm's way and the coach hastened away for assistance. Returning in a very short time to the spot, the old man was nowhere to be found, although there were traces of blood round about. He was never heard of again. At the same spot two drivers, neither of whom had heard of the previous occurrence, pulled up their coaches under the firm conviction that they had knocked down an old man with a long white beard. No trace could be found of the individual, nor anything which would explain the strange circumstance. The drivers, however, stick to their stories, and they tell them to you with the evident conviction that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your sceptical philosophy. Anyhow, it is a relief to think that the motors have not driven away the supernatural from the roads. The spirits are there still, and though men drive motors instead of horses, they see ghosts just in the same old way as their fathers. Motor men have not yet established a character of their own, as was the case with the coach-drivers. There was, years ago, a mail contractor and wagoner who was stated to be worth £100,000, but he always dressed in a white smock frock. He bore the delightful name of Jolly. One winter there was a great deal of snow, and Mr. Jolly thought he ought to be paid extra for the additional work, but the Department would not hear of it. So he memorialised the Postmaster-General in a very unconventional manner, but characteristic of his profession.

“My Lord,—I, John Jolly, of ——, have conveyed her Majesty's mails over hedges, ditches, and stone walls, and I, John Jolly, have never been properly paid for the same.” (Here it is thought he lost his temper and his limited vocabulary of decent words.) “And I, John Jolly, will see the Postmaster-General damned before I, John Jolly, do it again.”

Many Post Office memorialists probably mean this when they approach the Postmaster-General as “obedient servants,” but they have not been trained on the road.