n Russell, the future Prime Minister, spent on the
journey in 1806. He was then a schoolboy at Westminster, his father,
the sixth Duke of Bedford, being Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. My uncle,
who kept a diary from his earliest days, gives an account of this
journey in it. He spent three days going by stage-coach to Holyhead,
sleeping on the way at Coventry and Chester, and thirty-eight hours
crossing the Channel in a sailing-packet. The wind shifting, the packet
had to land her passengers at Balbriggan, twenty-one miles north of
Dublin, from which my uncle took a special post-chaise to Dublin,
presenting his glad parents, on his arrival, with a bill for L31 16s.,
a nice fare for a boy of fourteen to pay for going home for his
holidays!

In order to fulfil the terms of the 1860 contract, the mail-trains had
to cover the 264 miles between London and Holyhead at an average rate
of 42 miles per hour; an unprecedented speed in those days. People then
thought themselves most heroic in entrusting their lives to a train
that travelled with such terrific velocity as the "Wild Irishman." It
was to meet this acceleration that Mr. Ramsbottom, the Locomotive
Superintendent of the London and North-Western Railway, devised a
scheme for laying water-troughs between the rails, by which the engine
could pick up water through a scoop whilst running. I have somewhere
seen this claimed as an American innovation, but the North-Western
engines have been picking up water daily now ever since 1861; nearly
sixty years ago.

The greatest improvement, however, was effected in the cross-Channel
passage. To accomplish the sixty-five miles between Holyhead and
Kingstown in the contract time of four hours, the City of Dublin Co.
built four paddle-vessels, far exceeding any cross-Channel steamer then
afloat in tonnage, speed and accommodation. They were over three
hundred feet in length, of two thousand tons burden, and had a speed of
fifteen knots. Of these the Munster, Connaught, and Ulster were built
by Laird of Birkenhead, while the Leinster was built in London by
Samuda. These boats were most elaborately and comfortably fitted up,
and many people of my age, who were in the habit of travelling
constantly to Ireland, retain a feeling of almost personal affection
for those old paddle-wheel mailboats which carried them so often in
safety across St. George's Channel. It is possible that this feeling
may be stronger in those who, like myself, are unaff