The next disaster on our list was caused by a drunken coachman’s dazed state of mind. Early on a Sunday morning in June, 1837, the Lincoln and London Mails met and came into collision at Lower Codicote, near Biggleswade. The driver of the up mail, Thomas Crouch, was in a state of partial intoxication at the time, and owing to a curve in the road, and the wandering state of his faculties, he did not observe the approach of the other mail. The result was that, although the coachman of the other made room for him to pass, the two coaches came into violent collision. The coach driven by Crouch was turned completely round, ran twenty or thirty yards in a direction opposite to that it was originally taking, and finally settled in a leaning posture in the ditch. Crouch was so injured that he died a few hours afterwards. The passengers were not much hurt, but two horses were killed. On September 8th, a coachman named Burnett was killed at Speenhamland, on the Bath Road. He was driving one of the New Company’s London and Bristol stages, and alighted at the “Hare and Hounds,” very foolishly leaving the horses unattended, with the reins on their backs. He had been a coachman for twenty years, but experience had not been sufficient to prevent him thus breaking one of the first rules of the profession. He had no sooner entered the inn than the rival Old Company’s coach came down the road. Whether the other coachman gave the horses a touch with his whip as he passed, or if they started on their own accord, is not known, but they did start, and Burnett, rushing out to stop them, was thrown down and trampled on so that he died. Of another kind was the fatal accident that closed the year on the Glasgow Road. On the night of December 18th, the up Glasgow Mail ran over a man, supposed to have been a drunken carter, who was lying in the middle of the highway. 1837. _August._--The up Glasgow Mail, the up Edinburgh Mail, the Edinburgh and Dumfries, and the Edinburgh and Portpatrick Mails all upset the same night, at different places. 1838. _August._--The London to Lincoln Express met a waggon at night, at Mere Hall, six miles from Lincoln. The coachman called to the waggoner to make room, and a young man who, it is supposed, was asleep on the top, started up, and rolled off. The waggon-wheels went over and killed him.