I was driving rather fast over a nice level length of road, and was overtaking a waggon drawn by three or four horses. The waggoner very properly pulled to his own side of the road, and anticipating no difficulty I kept on at the pace I was previously going, but just as my leaders arrived within a short distance of the waggon, the horses overpowered the waggoner and crossed the road immediately in front of them. To stop the coach was impossible, but I was just able to check the pace sufficiently to enable me to pull across to the near side of the road, and pass on the wrong side. In the case of a railway there would be no such chance. There they could only stop, or have an accident. One gets used to everything after a time, and, I suppose, if I had been an engine-driver, I should become so accustomed to this as to think nothing of it; but, as it was, I never felt so helpless. I cannot conceive a greater trial of nerve than to be driving at the rate of twenty miles an hour, or more, among a labyrinth of rails, and entirely dependent on other people for safety. It is not very long ago since I saw in a newspaper an account of a pointsman being found dead in his box! I am reminded of the hackneyed saying of an old coachman in the early days of railways: "If a coach is upset," he said, "why, there you are; but if an accident happens to a railway train, where are you?" It is now upwards of twenty years since the last time I handled four-horse reins, and more than fifty-five since the first time, and I am not going to say that no improvements have taken place during that long period of time. Possibly some may have been found, but I must confess that those I have heard of do not appear to me to come into that category. It is a common reply to those who stand up for old systems that they were slow. That, at any rate, can hardly be alleged in the present case, for, though I admire the very smart thing done by poor Selby between London and Brighton, I think, when we consider the fast work habitually done in coaches in days of yore, and still more on the first of May and other special occasions, it must be admitted that the pace has, to say the least, not increased. Indeed, allowing for stoppages, taking up and putting down passengers, which lost many minutes in a journey, and the heavy loads carried, by neither of which was the "Old Times" troubled, I think the Brighton feat, good as it was, has often been surpassed. The three Birmingham Tally-ho's generally had a spurt on the first of May, and more than once performed the journey of a hundred and eight miles under seven hours--the best record, I believe, in existence.