The road was wide enough for three carriages to pass each other; but the prisoner Butler, perceiving that Perdy was keeping ahead of him, pushed his horses on, and waving his hat and cheering, suddenly turned his leaders in front of the leaders of the Holyhead Mail, which, in consequence of being jammed in between the bank of the road and the other vehicle, was immediately upset. The consequences were frightful. The deceased was killed on the spot, the witness had a leg and an arm shattered most dreadfully; and a gentleman's servant, named Fenner, was taken up almost lifeless. Thomas Fenner confirmed the last witness. He stated that both the prisoners were flogging their horses at a most furious rate down the hill, and he was convinced that the accident might have been avoided with common care, notwithstanding the velocity with which the horses were driven, as there was quite room enough for the Chester Mail to have passed the Holyhead. Mr. Baron Gurney summed up the case for the jury in an eloquent and impressive manner. The jury found the prisoners "Guilty." The learned Judge, in passing sentence, commented on the conduct of the prisoners in terms of strong animadversion. His Lordship laid it down distinctly, as a proposition not to be disputed, that it was unlawful for the driver to put his horses into a gallop, and that he was answerable for all the consequences of an infringement of this law. The driver of a stage-coach was bound to protect even the intoxicated, the blind, the aged, and the helpless against their own want of caution or imprudence. The case now before the Court presented circumstances of gross aggravation, and his Lordship felt it his duty to pronounce the severest judgment that the law would allow, which was that the prisoners should be severally confined in the common gaol of this county for the term of one year. At the Wiltshire Assizes in 1813, an action was brought by a Mr. Gooden against the proprietors of a mail coach, to recover damages for a serious injury sustained by the plaintiff, from its being overturned. It appeared in evidence that the plaintiff was an outside passenger, that the coach was overturned immediately on quitting the yard of the "Red Lion Inn," Salisbury, and that a compound fracture of the plaintiff's leg was the consequence of the accident. It seemed established that there was no gross misconduct on the part of the coachman to call for vindictive damages. Mr. Justice Gibbs left it to the jury to determine whether the defendants were liable on account of the apparent heedlessness of the coachman in not leading the horses out of the yard, and it was agreed that if the jury found the defendants liable, the verdict should pass for all such expenses as the plaintiff had reasonably incurred, which were to be ascertained by a reference. The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff, and the referee assessed the damages at six hundred pounds.