contempt with which almost every one looked down upon passengers by stage-waggons. The gentlemen themselves said: “The passengers in the waggon might be d----d; their betters must be served before them; they supposed it would be no hardship on such travellers to dine on bread-and-cheese for one day.” And the poor devils certainly would have gone without their meal had it not been for that good fellow Joey, the waggoner, who, entering the kitchen of the inn with a pitchfork in his hand, swore he would be the death of any man who should pretend to seize the victuals prepared for the waggon. “On this,” says Smollett, “the three strangers drew their swords, and, being joined by their servants, bloodshed seemed imminent, when the landlord, interposing, offered to part with his own dinner, for the sake of peace,” which proposal was accepted, and all ended happily. [Illustration: THE WAGGON, 1816. _After Rowlandson._ ] Such was the picture of travel by stage-waggon it was possible to present to the public in 1748 as a reasonably accurate transcript of road-life. It was at that time the usual practice among a party of travellers by waggon to elect a chairman on setting out. The one thus set above his fellows arranged with the waggoner where they were to halt during the day, settled with the innkeepers an inclusive charge for meals and accommodation, and was treasurer, paymaster, umpire, and general referee in all disputes. Thus was the ancient original idea of government in larger communities--government solely for the welfare of the community itself--reproduced in these poor folk. The gradual replacement of the pack-horses by heavy waggons began on the most frequented roads about the third decade of the eighteenth century. Twelve Turnpike Acts for the improvement of local roads had been passed in the ten years between 1700 and 1710. They increased by seventy-one in the next ten years, and no fewer than two hundred and forty-five came into existence between 1730 and 1760, followed from 1760 to 1770 by a hundred and seventy-five more. The great number of five hundred and thirty Acts in seventy-five years shows both the crying needs of the age and the energy with which the problem of road-improvement was grasped by Parliament. If the resulting betterment of the roads was not so great as it should have been, that was due rather to the unbusinesslike methods by which the turnpike trustees despatched their business, and not to the Government.