"Now," said I
to the Welshman, "to you and me, as men of refined sensibilities, how
painful it would have been that this poor Brummagem brute, the
'Tallyho,' in the impossible case of a victory over us, should have
been crowned with Birmingham tinsel, with paste diamonds and Roman
pearls, and then led off to instant execution." The Welshman doubted if
that could be warranted by law. And, when I hinted at the 6th of Edward
Longshanks, chap. 18, for regulating the precedency of coaches, as
being probably the statute relied on for the capital punishment of such
offences, he replied drily that, if the attempt to pass a mail really
were treasonable, it was a pity that the "Tallyho" appeared to have so
imperfect an acquaintance with law.
The modern modes of travelling cannot compare with the old mail-coach
system in grandeur and power. They boast of more velocity,--not,
however, as a consciousness, but as a fact of our lifeless knowledge,
resting upon _alien_ evidence: as, for instance, because somebody
_says_ that we have gone fifty miles in the hour, though we are far
from feeling it as a personal experience; or upon the evidence of a
result, as that actually we find ourselves in York four hours after
leaving London. Apart from such an assertion, or such a result, I
myself am little aware of the pace. But, seated on the old mail-coach,
we needed no evidence out of ourselves to indicate the velocity.
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