Aikin, writing of Manchester and its history, tells how the trade of that town, carried on of old by chapmen, owning gangs of pack-horses, began to increase in 1730, consequent upon the improvement of the roads. Waggons were set up, and the chapmen, instead of setting forth with their goods for sale, only rode out for orders, carrying patterns with them in their saddle-bags. Thus the commercial traveller, familiar in all the years between 1730 and the present time, came into existence. During the forty years from 1730 to 1770, says Aikin, the trade of Manchester was greatly pushed by the practice of sending these “riders,” as they were called, all over the kingdom. The goods they sold by sample were delivered in bulk by the waggons. By 1750, the gradual introduction of two classes of vehicles between the common stage-waggon and the stage-coach had begun. The first of these intermediate types was the Shrewsbury and London “Flying Stage Waggon,” announced to begin flying from Shrewsbury, October 22nd, 1750, to reach London in five days, winter and summer. As Shrewsbury is 152 miles from London, this meant thirty miles a day. Welsh flannels, and consignments of butter and lard and miscellaneous goods, shared this vehicle with the passengers. There was nothing in the build of this new comer on the road to distinguish it from the common stage-waggons, and it only progressed the quicker because, following the newly-established practice of the coaches of that period, it changed horses at places on the way, instead of making the whole journey with one--often tired and exhausted--team. The other type of vehicle was the “caravan” or “long coach,” the next step higher in the social scale. A “caravan” was put on the road between Shrewsbury and London at the close of 1750. It was an affair greatly resembling modern gipsy-vans, and was fitted inside with benches for eight, twelve, or even, at a pinch, eighteen persons. It was drawn by “six able horses,” and professed to reach London in four days, but often occupied the whole of five. The fare to London by “caravan” was 15s.--rather less than a penny-farthing a mile. A six-horsed conveyance answering to this description, but uncovered, is pictured by Rowlandson fifty-six years later, on a road not specified by him.