"Another mighty influence for good was the introduction (about 1818) of macadamised roads, which brought travelling up to the point of ten miles an hour. So also was the opening for use in 1829 of St. Martin's-le-Grand--a _grand_ event this, in every sense of the word." (Here a member objected to punning, and was immediately hooted out of countenance.) "With mail-coaches, macadamised roads, security, ten miles an hour, and a vastly increased revenue, the Post-Office seemed to have reached the highest heights of prosperity. The heights from which we now look down upon these things ought to make us humble in our estimate of the future! We have far surpassed the wildest dreams of those days, but there were some points of picturesque interest in which we can never surpass them. Ah! boys," said Solomon, looking up with a gleam of enthusiasm in his eyes, "I mind the old mail-coaches well. They had for a long time before I knew them reached their best days. It was about the year 1820 that most of the post-roads had been macadamised, and the service had reached its highest state of efficiency. In 1836 there were fifty four-horse mails in England, thirty in Ireland, and ten in Scotland, besides forty-nine two-horse mails in England. Those who have not seen the starting of the mail-coaches from the General Post-Office can never understand the magnificence and excitement of that scene. The coaches were clean, trim, elegant, and glittering; the blood-horses were the finest that could be procured, groomed to perfection, and full of fire; the drivers and guards were tried and trusty men of mettle, in bright scarlet costume--some of the former being lords, baronets, and even parsons! It was a gay and stirring sight when the insides and outsides were seated, when the drivers seized their reins, and the bugles sounded, the whips cracked, the impatient steeds reared, plunged, or sprang away, and the Royal Mails flew from the yard of St. Martin's-le-Grand towards every corner of the Kingdom.