The mail coaches, it should be said, carried three outside passengers at most, and no luggage at all on the roof. Of course these rates of speed, so much higher than had been known theretofore, called forth protests. “Old Traveller,” writing to the _Sporting Magazine_ in 1822, objects to the encouragement given such hazardous work by “Nimrod.” In his younger days, he says, when about to start on a journey, his wife’s parting hope was that he would not be robbed; now she had changed it to the hope that he would not get his neck broken. It was no uncommon thing, at the beginning of the century and earlier, for a Birmingham merchant to make his will before he set out on a journey; and with all respect to the “Old Traveller,” the risks he encountered on the road in the days before Macadam were as great from ruts and holes as from highwaymen. [Illustration: ROYAL MAIL COACH.] Travelling on May-day was avoided by those who objected to fast work, for it was customary for rival stages to race each other the whole journey on that day, and old sporting papers contain occasional record of the fact that a coach had accomplished its entire journey at a rate of fifteen miles an hour. A law passed in 1820, to put an end to “wanton and furious driving or racing,” by which coachmen were made liable to criminal punishment if anyone were maimed or injured, did not stop this practice. For on May 1, 1830, the Independent Tallyho ran from London to Birmingham, 109 miles, in 7 hours, 39 minutes. The writer in _Baily’s Magazine_ of June, 1900, before referred to, gives a graphic account of a May-day race between two of the smartest West country coaches, the Hibernia and l’Hirondelle, from which it appears that these contests were not always free from foolhardiness, though it must be admitted that they produced wonderful displays of coachmanship. Captain Malet gives the following as the fastest coaches in England in 1836:— London and Brighton, 51½ miles, time five hours, fifteen minutes; London and Shrewsbury, 154 miles, time fifteen hours; London and Exeter, 171 miles, time seventeen hours; London and Manchester, 187 miles, time nineteen hours; London and Liverpool, 203 miles, time twenty hours, fifty minutes; London and Holyhead, 261 miles, time twenty-six hours, fifty-five minutes.