But to accomplish the journey by coach in eighteen hours did not satisfy the new spirit come upon the scene. Isaac Taylor, who had taken the “Lion” coach-office and appears to have separated the businesses of inn-keeping and coach-proprietorship—that house being then occupied by William Tompkins, who was succeeded by Mrs. Basnett in 1835, and by Mrs. Brown in 1842—started the celebrated “Wonder” between Shrewsbury and London, in 1825, to “perform,” as the old coach advertisements expressed it, the journey of one hundred and fifty-eight miles in sixteen hours. The “Wonder” set the fashion of day coaches running long distances, and was the first to accomplish over a hundred miles a day. The proprietors’ complete satisfaction and pride in what they had found it possible to do are seen clearly reflected in the name given to the coach. Taylor had a strong company of allies to work the enterprise. It was horsed out of London from the “Bull and Mouth” by Sherman, and by the most reliable men at Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton; while at Shiffnal and Hay gate were two of his own brothers. According to the time bill here appended, there were sixty-five minutes consumed in stops on the way. Add to these fifteen minutes for the fourteen or fifteen changes at the various stages down the road, and the result is eighty minutes to be deducted from the running time, thus giving a net average speed of a little over eleven and a half miles an hour. TIME BILL OF THE “WONDER” COACH, LONDON TO SHREWSBURY _Departed from the “Bull and Mouth” at 6.30 morning._ _Left the “Peacock,” Islington, at 6.45 morning._