The general effect, from a social standpoint, of the combination of better roads and better coaches is well told in an essay "On the Country Manners of the Present Age," published in the "Annual Register" for 1761. The writer has much to say that is of interest from the point of view of the present work, but the following extracts must suffice:-- "It is scarce half a century since the inhabitants of distant counties were regarded as a species almost as different from those of the Metropolis as the natives of the Cape of Good Hope.... Formerly a journey into the country was considered almost as great an undertaking as a voyage to the Indies. The old family coach was sure to be stowed with all sorts of luggage and provisions; and perhaps in the course of the journey a whole village together with their teams, were called in to dig the heavy vehicle out of the clay, and to drag it to the next place of wretched accommodation which the road afforded. Thus they travelled like the caravan over the deserts of Arabia, with every disagreeable circumstance of tediousness and inconvenience. But now the amendments of the roads with the many other improvements of travelling have in a manner opened a new communication between the several parts of our island.... Stage-coaches, machines, flys and post chaises are ready to transport passengers to and fro, between the metropolis and the most distant parts of the Kingdom. The lover now can almost literally annihilate time and space, and be with his mistress before she dreams of his arrival. In short the manners, fashions, amusements, vices and follies of the metropolis now make their way to the remotest corners of the land as readily and speedily, along the turnpike road, as, of old, Milton's Sin and Death, by means {97}of their marvellous bridges over the Chaos from the infernal regions to our world. "The effects of this easy communication have almost daily grown more and more visible. The several great cities, and we might add, many poor country towns, seem to be universally inspired with the ambition of becoming the little Londons of the part of the country in which they are situated." But if the easy communication rendered possible by turnpike roads and flying coaches conferred on the country towns a hope of becoming so many little Londons, the day was to come when a still easier communication by means of railway lines and express trains was to take provincial residents just as readily to the great and real London, and so deprive not a few provincial centres of much of that social life and distinction which the improved transport facilities had brought them.