Читать книгу History of the Fylde of Lancashire онлайн

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“Some fifty years since and a coach had no power,

To move faster forward than six miles an hour,

Till Sawney McAdam made highways as good,

As paving-stones crushed into little bits could.

The coachee quite proud of his horse-flesh and trip,

Cried, ‘Go it, ye cripples!’ and gave them the whip,

And ten miles an hour, by the help of the thong,

They put forth their mettle and scampered along.

The Present has taken great strides of the Past,

For carriages run without horses at last!

And what is more strange,—yet it’s truth I avow,

Hack-horses themselves have turned passengers now!

These coaches alive go in sixes and twelves,

And once set in motion they travel themselves!

They’ll run thirty miles while I’m cracking this joke,

And need no provisions but pump-milk and coke!

And with their long chimneys they skim o’er the rails,

With two thousand hundred-weight tied to their tails!

While Jarvey in stupid astonishment stands,

Upturning both eyes and uplifting both hands,

‘My nags,’ he exclaims, betwixt laughing and crying,