In stage-coaches, accidents no doubt occur, and no one will assert that the proprietors guard against them to the utmost of their power. The great competition, however, which they have to encounter, is a strong stimulant to their exertions on this score. In some respects, also, the increase of pace has become the traveller’s security: coaches and harness must be of the best quality; horses fresh and sound; coachmen of skill and respectability can alone be employed; and to this increased pace is owing the improvement in these men’s character. They have not time now for drinking, and they come in collision with a class of persons superior to those who formerly were stage-coach passengers, by whose example it has been impossible for them not to profit. A coachman drunk on his box is now a rarity--a coachman quite sober was, but a few years ago, still more so. On the whole, however, travelling by public conveyance was never so secure as it is at the present time. Axle-trees and springs do not often break now; and if proprietors go to the expense, their wheels are made secure against coming off. The worst accidents, and those which, with the present structure of coaches, can never be entirely provided against, arise from broken axle-trees, and wheels coming off on the road. The guard, therefore, in whose department this lies, ought to examine the axle-tree every time it is fresh greased. He should also remove it once in ten days, put a string through the bolt that receives the linch-pin, and hang it up and cleanse it; and he should then strike it with a hammer, when, if uncracked and sound, it will ring like a bell--the coachman attending to take care that it be again properly screwed on. Reins also break, though rarely, except in those parts which run through the terrets, the rings of the throat-lash, or in the billets; and attention to these would make all safe, as far as accidents from this cause are concerned.