"
~Coaches.~--From its being situated as it were in the very heart of the
kingdom, Birmingham, in the olden days, and it is but fifty years ago,
was an important converging central-point of the great mailcoach system,
and a few notes in connection therewith cannot be uninteresting. Time
was when even coaching was not known, for have we not read how long it
took ere the tidings of Prince Rupert's attack on our town reached
London. A great fear seems to have possessed the minds of the powers
that were in regard to any kind of quick transmission whatever, for in
the year 1673 it was actually proposed "to suppress the public coaches
that ran within fifty or sixty miles of London," and to limit all the
other vehicles to a speed of "thirty miles per day in summer, and
twenty-five in winter"--for what might not be dreaded from such an
announcement as that "that remarkable swift travelling coach, 'The Fly,'
would leave Birmingham on Mondays and reach London on the Thursdays
following." Prior to and about 1738, an occasional coach was put on the
road, but not as a regular and periodical conveyance, the fare to London
being 25 shillings, "children on lap, and footmen behind, being charged
half-price.
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