but the most sanguine in this particular could never have anticipated the rapidity with which we are now whirled from one end of the kingdom to the other; fifty-two miles in five hours and a quarter, five changes of horses, and the same coachman to whisk you back again to supper over the same ground, and within the limits of the same day. No _ruts or quarterings_ now--all level as a bowling-green--half-bred blood cattle--bright brass harness--_minute and a half time_ to change--and a well-bred gentlemanly fellow for a coachman, who amuses you ~276~~with a volume of anecdotes, if you are fortunate enough to secure the box-seat, or touches his hat with the _congee_ of a courtier, as he pockets your tributary shilling at parting. No necessity either for settling your worldly affairs, or taking an affectionate farewell of a long string of relations before starting; travelling being now brought to a security unparalleled, and letters patent having passed the great seal of England to ensure, by means of _safety coaches_, the lives of her rambling subjects. There requires but one other invention to render the whole perfect, and that, if we may believe the newspapers, is very near completion--a coach to go without horses: to this I beg leave to propose, the steam apparatus might be made applicable to all the purposes of a portable kitchen. The coachman, instead of being a good judge of horse-flesh, to be selected from a first rate London tavern for his proficiency in cooking, a known prime hand at decomposing a turtle; instead of a book of roads, in the inside pocket should be placed a copy of Mrs. Glasse on Cookery, or Dr. Kitchener on Culinaries; where the fore-boot now is might be constructed a glazed larder, filled with all the good things in season: then too the accommodation to invalids, the back seat of the coach, might be made applicable to all the purposes of a shampooing or vapour bath--no occasion for Molineux or his black rival Mahomed; book your patients inside back seat in London, wrap them up in blankets, and give directions to the cook to keep up a good steam thermometer during the journey, 120 deg., and you may deliver them safe at Brighton, properly hashed and reduced for any further medical experiments. (See Engraving, p. 274.) The accommodation to fat citizens, and western _gourmands_, would be excellent, the very height of luxury and refinement--inhaling the salubrious breeze one moment, and gurgling down the glutinous calipash the next; no ~277~~exactions of impudent waiters, or imposing landlords, or complaints of dying from hunger, or choking from the want of time to masticate; but every wish gratified and every sense employed. Then how jovial and pleasant it would appear to see perched up in front a John Bull-looking fellow in a snow-white jacket, with a night-cap and apron of the same, a carving-knife in a case by his side, and a poker in his hand to stir up the steam-furnace,