In the year 1811, according to a table in the edition of "Patterson's Roads," published in that year, the mail from London to Chester and Holyhead, which started from the General Post-Office at eight o'clock on Monday evening, arrived at Chester at twenty-five minutes past twelve on the morning of the following Wednesday, thus taking about twenty-eight hours and a half to perform a journey of one hundred and eighty miles. The "Bristol" occupied fifteen hours and three-quarters on her journey of one hundred and twenty miles, whilst that to Shrewsbury, which at that time ran by Uxbridge and Oxford, consumed twenty-three hours in accomplishing the distance of one hundred and sixty-two miles, and, as Nimrod remarked in his article on the Road, "Perhaps, an hour after her time by Shrewsbury clock." This shows a speed of nearly eight miles an hour, which, if kept, was very creditable work; but upon this we see that Nimrod casts a doubt, and he adds "The betting were not ten to one that she had not been overturned on the road." By the year 1825, some considerable acceleration had taken place. The Shrewsbury mail, which had then become the more important Holyhead mail, performed the journey to Shrewsbury in twenty hours and a half, and was again accelerated in the following year, but to how great an extent I have no knowledge. I only know that a few years later the time allowed was reduced to sixteen hours and a quarter, and she was due at Holyhead about the same time as, a few years previously, she had reached Shrewsbury, or twenty-eight hours from London; and thus, owing in a great degree to the admirable efficiency of Mr. Telford's road-making, surpassing by six hours the opinion expressed by him in the year 1830, that the mail ought to go to Holyhead in thirty-four hours. The remuneration paid to the horse contractors was, with very few exceptions, always very small, as the table already introduced shows. Notwithstanding all the improvements in the mails, however, when the fast day coaches became their rivals, they more and more lost their good customers and then began the complaints about the small amount paid by the post-office. So much, indeed, did this competition tell, that when the Shrewsbury mail became the Holyhead, and changed its route from the Oxford road to that through Coventry, the contractors would accept no less than a shilling a mile, fearing the opposition they would have to meet by those who had lost the mail on the other road. It was, however, largely reduced afterwards, but to what extent I have not ascertained; and again, upon an acceleration in 1826, it was increased to fourpence, with the proviso that if it shared less than four pounds a mile per month during the ensuing year, the price should be raised to fivepence. The Chester mail also obtained a rise to sixpence at the same time, as it did not earn four pounds a mile; doubtless in consequence of its having ceased to carry the Holyhead traffic.