Travelling was both a difficult and a dangerous operation in former days. We do not know when a direct communication by coach between Liverpool and London was first established; but we have been told that some sort of stage was started to Warrington and Manchester in the year 1767. We have indeed read in an old Liverpool _Chronicle_, January 21st, 1768, that John Stonehewer, a driver of the said stage, had broken his thigh by a fall from the box, a very likely accident in those old-fashioned days of rough stone pavements. Many of our readers must recollect with what persevering tenacity the shaking old road between Liverpool and Prescot was maintained as part and parcel of the British constitution, to the great loss and damage of our more modern coach proprietors, whose vehicles were more tried and injured by the eight miles of paving stones between these two towns than by all the rest of the journey to the metropolis. The surveyors stood by the paving stones to the last. Liverpool always adhered to the old ways, however rough they might be. Macadam, “the Colossus of roads,” as some wit called him, was an innovator; what right had he to make improvements which would militate against the trade of coach-builders and menders? Macadam! What a short reign was his? “Come like shadows; so depart!” Hardly had he grasped his sceptre firmly in his hand, and persuaded the people to mend their ways, when another and a mightier magician waved his wand, and all was changed. George Stephenson and railways burst upon us, and Macadam’s meteor flight was brought to a sudden close. The fast man gave way to the faster.