'One of our most celebrated whips Charles Buxton, Esq., has concluded a bet of 500 Guineas with Mr. Thomas Hall, the dealer in horses. The object of the wager is to decide which of the two is the best driver of four unruly horses. The wager is to be decided by two friends of the parties, who are to pick out eight horses from Spencer's, Marsden's, and White's. Lords Barrymore and Cranley are chosen as the umpires. The horses selected are only to be those which have not been broken in. The friend of each charioteer is to pick the horses alternately until the number agreed on is selected. The parties are then to mount the box and proceed to decide the wager. The bettings already are said to be considerable. Neither the scene of action nor the day when the contest is to take place are yet determined on. Mr. Buxton is said to be so certain of success that he has offered to double the bet.' Though the law of 1820 made racing a criminal offence, the practice was one which could not be wholly put down, and on May-day the law was set at naught by popular consent, rival coaches on that day racing one another without disguise: the May-day race became an institution of the road, and seems to have been winked at by the authorities. Some wonderful records were made in these contests on the macadam. Thus, on 1st May 1830, the Independent Tally Ho ran from London to Birmingham, 109 miles, in 7 hours 39 minutes. It was not rare for a coach to perform its journey at a rate of fifteen miles an hour on May-day. We may compare this with the time made in the Leicester-Nottingham race of 1808 mentioned on page 17. It is seventy years since the carriage of the mails was transferred from coach to railway train, and there are yet living men who can remember the last journeys of the mail-coaches, some carrying little flags at half-mast, some displaying a miniature coffin, emblematic of the death of a great institution. Yet the mail-coach survived until a much later date in some districts, where the line was slow to penetrate. Mr. S. A. Kinglake, in _Baily's Magazine_ of 1906, gave an account of the Oxford and Cheltenham coach, which only began to carry the mails in 1848, and made its last trip in 1862, when the opening of a new branch line ousted this lingerer on the roads.