Prominent among those men who declined to give up without a struggle was Sherman, of the “Bull and Mouth,” whose coaches had run to Birmingham, Manchester, and other places on the north-western road. For two years he maintained the unequal contest, and only relinquished it when he had lost seven thousand pounds and found his coaches running empty. Before finally beaten, he had even gone the length of re-establishing some coaches originally withdrawn in 1836, on the opening of the Grand Junction Railway. The reasons for this were many. The train-service in those early days was very poor, and engine-power insufficient, so that heavy loads, rain-showers that made the rails slippery, and the innumerable minor accidents always happening to the engines themselves, made travelling by railway not only uncertain, but, in not a few instances, even slower than by coach. Railway officials, too, were insolent to an incredible degree. Only when one has read the “Letters to the Editor” in contemporary journals can we have any idea of that insolence. The public complained that, having run the coaches off and secured a monopoly, the officials, finding themselves masters of the situation, behaved accordingly like masters, and not like the servants of the public they really were, or should have been. Newspaper comments dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s, and generally emphasised and embroidered these grievances. It is not, then, to be wondered at that a regret for “the good old times” found expression, or that coaches reappeared for a while. Many coach-proprietors were deceived by this partly indignant, partly sentimental attitude, and when they had committed themselves to a revival did not find the support which, from the newspaper outcry, they might reasonably have expected. Thus early do we find that gigantic evil of modern times--irresponsible and misleading newspaper talk--directly to blame for losses and disappointments to those foolish enough to pay heed to it. [Illustration: THE LAST JOURNEY DOWN THE ROAD. _After J. H. Agasse._ ] Sherman’s country partners were not so rash or so obstinate as he, and some of the coaches he personally would have continued had been withdrawn early in the railway advance. Among those was the Manchester “Red Rover”; but when the popular indignation against railway delays and official insolence was thus exploited by the newspapers, Sherman was enabled to again secure the co-operation of his allies, and to put that coach on the road once more. The decision to do so was announced in a striking handbill:-- “THE RED ROVER RE-ESTABLISHED throughout to Manchester. _Bull and Mouth Inn and Queen’s Hotel._ It is with much satisfaction that the Proprietors of the RED ROVER Coach are enabled to announce its RE-ESTABLISHMENT