Edwin A. Pratt

“ The early days of the railway undoubtedly brought serious inconvenience to people who found themselves set down at a station ten, fifteen or twenty miles distant from their home, with no chance of their getting a coach because rail competition and Government taxation combined had made it no longer possible to run a coach on that road. If the taxation had not, as was often the case, made all the difference between profit and loss, many of the coaches would probably have held on a few years longer, by which time the railways would have been more generally developed. ”

“ Mr Horne, of Charing Cross, who kept 400 horses, said he bought 150 every year. On some roads, it was affirmed, the mortality of the horses, due in part to the bad state of the roads and in part to the accelerated speed, was so great that the average coach-horse lasted only two years. On certain roads around London it was necessary to have six horses attached to a coach in order to drag it through the two feet or so of mud which, in wet weather, was to be found on such roads as the one across Hounslow Heath. ”

“ It is true that an acceleration had been effected in the rates of speed attainable on improved roads, under the stimulus of mail and "flying" coaches. But these results had only been secured with consequences for the unfortunate horses which no one possessed of a spark of humanity could fail to deplore. Several coach proprietors, each owning between 300 and 400 horses, informed a House of Commons Select Committee in 1819 that those of their horses which worked within fifty miles of London lasted only three or four years, in which period the entire stock had to be renewed. ”

“ Several horses, in endeavouring to keep time, according to the new Post Office regulations, have had their legs snapped in two on the road, while others have dropped dead from the effort of a ruptured blood-vessel or a heart broken in efforts to obey the whip. ”

“ The heavy expense which is proved by experience to be unavailable in keeping the railways and engines in repair, where great speed is the object, will in numerous cases soon make it evident that no dividends can be paid to the shareholders, and the cheaper method of using horse-power will be adopted.... ”

“ The grand obstacle, however, to the establishment of these cars is the heavy taxation on travelling, which utterly deters individuals from engaging in such speculations; while in Ireland, where the roads are decidedly inferior, but where none of these taxes exist, cheap and expeditious public conveyances are everywhere to be found. ”

“ On one of the southern roads a coach was put on which was run at the rate of twelve miles an hour; but seven horses died in three weeks, and the pace was then reduced to ten miles an hour. An average speed even of six and a half miles an hour was declared to be scarcely possible on some of the roads. ”

“ Very valuable evidence was submitted to your Committee by Sir Edward Lees, secretary to the Post Office at Edinburgh, as to the increased speed, security and cheapness with which the post might be conveyed over the cross-roads of Scotland by the establishment of mail cars similar to those now in use in Ireland, thereby increasing the Revenue and opening up districts now altogether destitute of any mode of public conveyance; the same remarks would necessarily apply to many cross-roads in England. ”

“ As it was they were withdrawn in larger numbers, at an earlier period, than would otherwise have been the case, and there were many instances of great hardship to travellers whose means did not allow of their supplementing an incomplete railway journey by hiring a vehicle specially for themselves. ”