horses, driver, and passengers were precipitated upward of thirty-five feet onto a bed of rock below the coach was dashed to pieces, and two of the horses killed literally smashed.

"A respectable elderly lady of the name of Clarke, of Louisville, Kentucky, and a negro child were crushed to death and a man so dreadfully mangled that his life is flickering on his lips only. His face was beaten to a mummy. The other passengers and the driver were woefully bruised, but it is supposed they are out of danger. There were seven in number.

"I cannot gather that any blame was attached to the driver. It is said that he was perfectly sober; but he and his horses were new to this road, and the night was foggy and very dark."

An act of the legislature of Ohio required. that every stagecoach used for the conveyance of passengers in the night should have two good lamps affixed in the usual manner, and subjected the owner to a fine of from ten to thirty dollars for every fortyeight hours the coach was not so provided. Drivers of coaches who should drive in the

night when the track could not be distinctly seen without having the lamps lighted were subject to a forfeiture of from five to ten dollars for each offense. The same act provided that drivers guilty of intoxication, so as to endanger the safety of passengers, on written notice of a passenger on oath, to the owner or agent, should be forthwith discharged, and subjected the owner continuing to employ that driver more than three days after such notice to a forfeiture of fifty dollars a day.

Stage proprietors were required to keep a printed copy of the act posted up in their offices, under a penalty of five dollars.

Another act of the Ohio legislature subjected drivers who should leave their horses without being fastened, to a fine of not over twenty dollars.

As has been intimated, passengers purchased their tickets of the stage company in whose stage they embarked, and the tolls were included in the price of the ticket. A paper resembling a waybill was made out by the agent of the line at the starting point. This paper was given to the driver and delivered by him to the

landlord at each station upon the arrival of the coach. This paper contained the names and destinations of the passengers carried, the sums paid as fare and the time of departure, and contained blank squares for registering time of arrival and departure from each station. The fares varied slightly but averaged about four cents a mile.

CHAPTER V

MAILS AND MAIL LINES

HE most important official function of the Cumberland Road was to fur

TH

nish means of transporting the United States mails. The strongest constitutional argument of its advocates was the need of facilities for transporting troops and mails. The clause in the constitution authorizing the establishment of post roads was interpreted by them to include any measure providing quick and safe transmission of the mails. As has been seen, it was finally considered by many to include building and operating railways with funds appropriated for the Cumberland Road.

The great mails of seventy-five years ago were operated on very much the same principle on which mails are operated today. The Post Office Department at Washington contracted with the great stage lines for the transmission of the mails by yearly

contracts, a given number of stages with a given number of horses to be run at given intervals, to stop at certain points, at a fixed yearly compensation, usually determined by the custom of advertising for bids and accepting the lowest offered.

When the system of mailcoach lines reached its highest perfection, the mails were handled as they are today. The great mails that passed over the Cumberland Road were the Great Eastern and the Great Western mails out of St. Louis and Washington. A thousand lesser mail lines connected with the Cumberland Road at every step, principally those from Cincinnati in Ohio, and from Pittsburg in Pennsylvania. There were through and way mails, also mails which carried letters only, newspapers going by separate stage. There was also an "Express Mail" Express Mail" corresponding to the present "fast mail."

It is probably not realized what rapid time was made by the old-time stage and express mails over the Cumberland Road to the Central West. Even compared with the fast trains of today, the express mails of sixty years ago, when conditions were