Note 18 — DOMESTIC LIFE OF THE SAXONS.

In some parts of England, the badness of the roads continued to our day, when mud and clay were almost as great hindrances as in the Saxon times. Kent and Sussex were specially ill-favoured in this respect. Defoe, after travelling through all the counties, tells us that the road from Tunbridge was "the deepest and dirtiest" in all that part of England; and hereabouts it was, not far from Lewes, that he describes a sight which he had never seen in any other part of England, "that going to church at a country village, he saw an ancient lady, and a lady of very good quality, drawn to church in her coach with six oxen; nor was it either frolic or humour, but mere necessity." In 1708, Prince George of Denmark journeyed from Godalming, through the Sussex mud to Petworth, to meet Charles VI. of Spain: it cost six hours to conquer the last nine miles of the way. At a later date, Horace Walpole calls Sussex "a fruitful country, but very dirty for travellers, so that it may be better measured by days' journeys than by miles; whence it was, that in a late order for regulating the wages of coachmen at such a price a day's journey from London, Sussex alone was excepted, as wherein shorter way or better pay was allowed." Yet, in this county, stage-coach travelling attained higher perfection than in the majority of the counties of England. "In these days of railroads, express trains, excursion trains, mail trains, parliamentary trains, and special trains, there is no great difficulty in making a tour in Sussex, without any very great outlay of expense or time."—Quarterly Review.