The roads were then, under the operation of various Turnpike Acts and the General Highway Act of 1745, beginning to lay aside something of their pristine horrors, and Shrewsbury coaching enterprise was once more aroused to great issues. In April, 1753, the “Birmingham and Shrewsbury Long Coach, with six able horses, in four days,” started from the “Old Red Lion” (the “Lion,” Wyle Cop), and went to the “Bell,” Holborn. The fare was only 18_s._, not more than 5_s._ over and above the price of a third-class railway journey that nowadays takes you either way in something less than three hours and three-quarters. Competition began at Shrewsbury in less than three months after the establishment of the “Long Coach,” for in the following June Fowler’s “Shrewsbury Stage-coach in three and a half days” began to set out from the “Raven and Bell” to the “George and White Hart,” Aldersgate Street; fare one guinea, outside half-price. It is not on record how these rivals regarded one another, but they seem to have continued, each going to London once a week, for thirteen years before circumstances warranted the intrusion of a third. In April, 1764, however, a “Machine” was started, to go three times a week and do the journey in two days, at a fare of 30_s._ The continually increasing fares up to this point were balanced by the lower hotel expenses on the shorter time taken, and so the “Machine” became popular in summer. But this celerity of motion could not be sustained during the winter, when the journey was extended to three days. In the spring of 1765, when it returned to its fine weather rapidity, it received the name of the “_Flying_ Machine,” with the fare raised to 36_s._; but in August, 1772, when its time was reduced to one and a half days, the price came down by a couple of shillings. The reason for this combined acceleration of pace and reduction of fare is instantly apparent—opposition was threatened. It came with the spring of the following year, but did not directly challenge the supremacy of the “Flying Machine,” for the “new Flying Machine,” as it was called, by John Payton, of Stratford-on-Avon, and Robert Lawrence, of the “Raven and Bell,” Shrewsbury, took the Stratford-on-Avon and Oxford route to London, was half a day longer on the journey, and charged 2_s._ more. The proprietors of the original “Flying Machine” must have felt relieved when those particulars were disclosed; but their nerves received a worse shock in the spring of 1774, for the confederates who had started the “new Flying Machine” re-named it the “London and Shrewsbury New Fly,” and announced several alterations and improvements. It was to perform the journey in a day and a half, to go three times a week, and, fitted “quite in the modern taste” and with steel springs, it offered decided advantages over the old favourite. In addition came the unkind announcement that, “notwithstanding the Fly sets out after the old