carry the mails in 1848, and made its last trip in 1862, when the opening of a new branch line ousted this lingerer on the roads.

The interregnum between the last of the old coaches and the modern era was not a very long one: indeed, taking the country as a whole, and accepting the coach as subsidiary to the railway, the old and the new overlap. Modern road coaching dates from the later 'sixties, when the late Duke of Beaufort, with some others, started the Brighton coach. This was the first of several private ventures of the same kind: their primary object was to enable the owners to enjoy the pleasure of driving a team, and the financial side of the business was not much regarded. The subscription coach was a later development, with the same object in view, pleasure rather than money-making, and the large majority of the coaches which run from London to Brighton, St. Albans, Guildford, and other places within an easy day's journey are maintained by small syndicates of subscribers, who take turns on the box. American visitors patronise these vehicles extensively, and no doubt to their support may be traced Mr. Vanderbilt's venture on the Brighton road.

The modern coach travels quite as fast as its predecessor when required: as witness James Selby's famous performance on 13th July 1888. He left the White Horse Cellar at 10 A.M.; arrived at the Old Ship, Brighton, 1.56 P.M.; turned and reached town at 5.50; the journey out and home again being accomplished in 7 hours 50 minutes; part of the way between Earlswood and Horley he travelled at a rate of twenty miles an hour.