Before I pass on from the subject of the guards, I should like to put once again before the reader the onerous and, indeed, dangerous nature of their duties, and the admirable and faithful way in which they performed them. Among other reports of the same nature I have selected the following, which occurred in November, 1836:-- "The guard, Rands, a very old servant, on the Ludlow and Worcester line, states the coach and passengers were left at a place called Newnham, in consequence of the water being too deep for the coach to travel. I took the mail on horseback until I could procure a post chaise to convey the bags to meet the mail for London. This lost one hour and fourteen minutes, but only forty-five minutes' delay on the arrival in London." Out of their very moderate pay, those of them working out of London, and in Ireland, were called upon to pay the sum of six shillings and sixpence quarterly to the armourer for cleaning arms, but in the country they looked after their own. How far these were kept in serviceable order I have no means of knowing, but judging from a very strange and melancholy accident which occurred in Ireland, those in charge of the armourers appear to have been kept in very fit condition for use, indeed, if not rather too much so. The report says, "As the Sligo mail was preparing to start from Ballina, the guard, Samuel Middleton, was in the act of closing the lid of his arm chest, when, unfortunately, a blunderbuss exploded, one of the balls from which entered the side of a poor countryman, name Terence M'Donagh, and caused his instant death." If this had occurred now, I suppose, by some reasoning peculiarly Hibernian, this accident would have been laid at Mr. Balfour's door. As has been shown by the mileage warrant the remuneration paid to the coach proprietors for horsing the mails was, with the exception of two or three cases, always very small. How they contrived to make any profit out of it, with at first only four passengers, is to me a mystery. I can only suppose that the fares charged to the passengers were very high. As the roads improved, and the conveyances were made more comfortable and commodious, three outside passengers were allowed to be carried, and the pace being accelerated, no doubt many of the mails had a pretty good time of it till the roads were sufficiently improved for the fast day coaches to commence running. Up to this time the only competition they experienced was that of the slow and heavy night coaches, and all the "_élite_" who did not object to pay well for the improved accommodation, travelled by the mails, which were performing their journeys at a good speed considering the then condition of the roads.