honourable man never lived."

Another man of some note on the London and Barkway road was Thomas
Cross, the driver of the Lynn coach, to whose interesting volumes, "The
Autobiography of a Stage Coachman," I have previously referred. The
Cambridge "Telegraph" was, at one time, driven by a type of man whose
character found expression in the soubriquet of "Quaker Will."

The difference between the risk of accidents on a coach and in a
railway train has been well put by the old stager who asked the
question--"If you meet with an accident by a coach and get thrown into
a ditch, why there you are! but if you meet with an accident when
riding by train--where are you?"

A few coaching adventures may be worth mentioning. Thus in 1803 it is
recorded that--

On Saturday morning, early, the Wisbeach Mail from London coming down
Reed Hill, between Buckland and Royston, was overthrown by the horses
taking fright, by which accident one woman was killed on the spot and
some other passengers slightly hurt.

On one occasion the Hertford coach met with a very alarming accident
when overloaded with 34 passengers, nearly all of whom were severely
hurt. A shocking accident, from top-loading, occurred in 1814 to the
Ipswich coach, on the top of which the Rev. Gaven Braithwaite, Fellow
of St. John's College, Cambridge, was crushed to death as the coach
entered the gateway of the Blue Boar Inn, in that town.

Sometimes a coach was overturned with ludicrous results. Thus the Lynn
coach, when being driven through Trumpington, on one occasion was
overturned against the wall of a cottage. It so happened that the good
house-wife was washing at the time; it further happened that her door
was standing wide open, and it also happened that the ladies on the
coach were pitched into the open doorway of the cottage, and one of
them was pitched into the tub of soapsuds! In 1834, as soon as the day
coach from Wisbeach to London, through Cambridge, arrived at the White
Hart Inn, Cambridge, it was seized by the Excise officers and taken to
the Rose and Crown, where it remained some days "in confinement," owing
to the interesting circumstance that smuggled brandy was "on board."

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Of the personal adventures of those in charge of the coaches and their
hardships, the late Mr. James Richardson used to tell a graphic story
to the effect that one winter's day he was waiting at the Cross,
Royston, till the coach came in from the North. The towns