EARLY COACHING DAYS
But even these coaches, which jogged along in so leisurely6 a fashion, went at a furious and breakneck—{9}not to say daredevil—pace compared with the time consumed by the stage coach advertised in the Mercurius Politicus of 1658 to start from the ‘George Inn,’ Aldersgate Without, ‘every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. To Salisbury in two days for xxs. To Blandford and Dorchester in two days and a half for xxxs. To Exminster, Nunnington, Axminster, Honiton, and Exeter in four days xls.’
The ‘Exeter Fly’ of a hundred years later than this, which staggered down to Exeter in three days, under the best conditions, and was the swiftest public conveyance7 down this road at that time, before the new stages and mails were introduced, had been known, it is credibly8 reported, to take six.
FARES
Palmer’s mail coaches, which were started on the Exeter Road in the summer of 1785, rendered all this kind of meandering9 progress obsolete10, except for the poorest class of travellers, who had still for many a long year (indeed, until road travel was killed by the railways) to endure the miseries11 of a journey in the great hooded12 luggage waggons14 of Russell and Company, which, with a team of eight horses, started from Falmouth, and travelling at the rate of three miles an hour, reached London in twelve days. A man on a pony15 rode beside the team, and with a long whip touched them up when this surprising pace was not maintained. The travellers walked, putting their belongings16 inside; and when night was come either camped under the ample shelter of the lumbering17 waggon13, or, if it were winter, were accommodated for a trifle in the stable lofts18 of the inns they halted at. Messrs. Russell and Company were in business for{10} many years as carriers between London and the West, and at a later date—from the ’20’s until the close of the coaching era—were the proprietors19 of an intermediate kind of vehicle between the waggon at one extreme and the mail coaches at the other. This was the ‘Fly Van,’ of which, unlike their more ancient conveyances20 which set out only three times a week, one started every week-day from either end. This accommodated a class of travellers who did not disdain21 to travel among the bales and bundles, or to fit themselves in between the knobbly corners of heavy goods, but who would neither walk nor consent to the journey from the Far West occupying the best part of a fortnight. So they paid a trifle more and travelled the distance between Exeter and London in two days, in times when the ‘Telegraph,’ according to Sir William Knighton, conveyed the aristocratic passenger that distance in seventeen hours. He writes, in his diary, under date of 23rd September 1832, that he started at five o’clock in the morning of that day from Exeter in the ‘Telegraph’ coach for London. The fare, inside, was ￡3: 10s., and, in addition, four coachmen and one guard had to be paid the usual fees which custom had rendered obligatory22. They breakfasted at Ilminster and dined at Andover. ‘Nothing,’ he says, ‘can exceed the rapidity with which everything is done. The journey of one hundred and seventy-five miles was accomplished23 in seventeen hours[2]—breakfast and dinner were so hurried that the cravings of appetite could hardly be{11} satisfied, and the horses were changed like lightning.’ The fare, inside, was therefore practically 5d. a mile, to which must be added at least fifteen shillings in tips to those four coachmen and that guard, bringing the cost of the smartest travelling between London and Exeter up to ￡4: 5s. for the single journey; while the fares by waggon and ‘Fly Van’ would be at the rate of a halfpenny and twopence per mile respectively, something like 7s. 6d. and 29s. 6d.; without, in those cases, the necessity for tipping.
There were, however, more degrees than these in the accommodation and fares for coach travellers. The proper mail coach fare was 4d. a mile, but the mails were not the ne plus ultra of speed and comfort even on this road, where the ‘Quicksilver’ mail ran a famous course. Hence the 5d. a mile by the ‘Telegraph.’ But it was left to the ‘Waggon Coach’ to present the greatest disparity of prices and places. This was a vehicle which, under various names, was seen for a considerable period on most of the roads, and can, with a little ingenuity24, be looked upon as the precursor25 of the three classes on railways. There were the first-class ‘insides,’ the second-class ‘outsides,’ and those very rank outsiders indeed, the occupants of the shaky wickerwork basket hung on behind, called the ‘crate’ or the ‘rumble-tumble,’ who were very often noisily drunken sailors and people who did not mind a little jolting26 more or less.
Some very fine turns-out were on this road at the end of the ’30’s. Firstly, there was the ‘Royal Mail,’ between the ‘Swan with Two Necks,’ in Lad Lane,{12} and the ‘New London Inn,’ Exeter, both in those days inns of good solid feeding, with drinking to match. It was of the first-named inn, and of another equally famous, that the poet (who must have been of the fleshly and Bacchic order) wrote:—
At the Swan with Two Throttles27
I tippled two bottles,
And bothered the beef at the Bull and the Mouth.
One can readily imagine the sharp-set and shivering traveller, fresh from the perils28 of the road, ‘bothering the beef’ with his huge appetite, and tippling the generous liquor (which, of course, was port) with loud appreciative29 smackings of the lips.
Then there were the ‘Sovereign,’ the ‘Regulator,’ and the ‘Eclipse,’ going by the Blandford and Dorchester route; the ‘Prince George,’ ‘Herald,’ ‘Pilot,’ ‘Traveller,’ and ‘Quicksilver,’ by Crewkerne and Yeovil; and the ‘Defiance,’ ‘Celerity,’ and ‘Subscription,’ by Amesbury and Ilminster; to leave unnamed the short stages and the bye-road coaches, all helping30 to swell31 the traffic in those old days, now utterly32 forgotten.
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1
purport
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| n.意义，要旨，大要；v.意味著，做为...要旨，要领是... | |
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2
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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3
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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4
specified
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| adj.特定的 | |
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5
haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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6
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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7
conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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8
credibly
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| ad.可信地；可靠地 | |
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9
meandering
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| 蜿蜒的河流，漫步，聊天 | |
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10
obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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11
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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12
hooded
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| adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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13
waggon
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| n.运货马车，运货车；敞篷车箱 | |
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14
waggons
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| 四轮的运货马车( waggon的名词复数 )； 铁路货车； 小手推车 | |
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15
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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16
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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17
lumbering
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| n.采伐林木 | |
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18
lofts
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| 阁楼( loft的名词复数 )； （由工厂等改建的）套房； 上层楼面； 房间的越层 | |
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19
proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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conveyances
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| n.传送( conveyance的名词复数 )；运送；表达；运输工具 | |
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21
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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22
obligatory
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| adj.强制性的，义务的，必须的 | |
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23
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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24
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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25
precursor
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| n.先驱者；前辈；前任；预兆；先兆 | |
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26
jolting
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| adj.令人震惊的 | |
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27
throttles
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| n.控制油、气流的阀门( throttle的名词复数 )；喉咙，气管v.扼杀( throttle的第三人称单数 )；勒死；使窒息；压制 | |
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28
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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29
appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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30
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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31
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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32
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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