From 1822 to 1826 Birmingham witnessed a great improvement in its coaches. Waddell owned the two most prominent yards in the town, but had many ardent competitors. In 1822 the “Tally-ho” was established, shortly to be followed by the hotly competing “Independent,” “Real,” and “Patent” Tally-hoes. Supposed to keep a pace of ten miles an hour, they no sooner left the town behind than they started racing, to the terror of the nervous and the delight of the sporting passengers. Annually, on the First of May, they were spurred to superhuman and super-equine exertions, and, we are told, covered the hundred and eight miles between Birmingham and London “under seven hours.” How much under is not stated, but as an even seven hours gives us fifteen miles an hour, including stops, the pace must have been furious. Harry Tresslove, the coachman of the “Independent Tally Ho,” always galloped the five-mile stage between Dunchurch and the “Black Dog,” Stretton-upon-Dunsmore, in eighteen minutes. The existence of all stage-coaches being furiously competitive, they could not afford to be quiet and plain, like the Mails. “Once I remember,” says De Quincey, “being on the top of the Holyhead Mail between Shrewsbury and Oswestry, when a tawdry thing from Birmingham, some ‘Tally-ho’ or ‘Highflyer,’ all flaunting with green and gold, came up alongside of us. What a contrast with our royal simplicity of form and colour in this plebeian wretch! The single ornament on our dark ground of chocolate colour was the mighty shield of the Imperial arms, but emblazoned in proportion as modest as a signet-ring bears to a seal of office. Even this was displayed only on a single panel, whispering, rather than proclaiming, our relations to the mighty State; whilst the beast from Birmingham, our green-and-gold friend from false, fleeting, perjured Brummagem, had as much writing and painting on its sprawling flanks as would have puzzled a decipherer from the tombs of Luxor. For some time this Birmingham machine ran along by our side—a piece of familiarity that already of itself seemed to me sufficiently Jacobinical. But all at once a movement of the horses announced a desperate intention of leaving us behind. ‘Do you see _that_?’ I said to the coachman. ‘I see,’ was his short answer. He was wide awake, yet he waited longer than seemed prudent, for the horses of our audacious opponent had a disagreeable air of freshness and power. But his motive was loyal; his wish was that the Birmingham conceit should be full-blown before he froze it. When that seemed right he unloosed, or, to speak by a stronger word, he _sprang_ his unknown resources: he slipped our Royal horses like cheetahs, or hunting-leopards, after the affrighted game. How they could retain such a reserve of fiery power after the work they had accomplished seemed hard to explain. But on our side, besides the physical superiority, was a tower of moral strength, namely, the King’s Name.