kept up with the vast increase of population, in quality they remained, as a rule, unchanged. Traveling by stage, except on the half dozen good roads then in existence, was, in 1825, far more uncomfortable than on the bridle-path on horseback half a century previous. It would be the same today if we could find a vehicle as inconvenient as an old-time stagecoach. In our "Experiences of Travelers" we shall give pictures of actual life on these pioneer roads of early days. A glimpse or two at these roads will not be out of place here.
The route from Philadelphia to Baltimore is thus described by the American Annual Register for 1796: "The roads from Philadelphia to Baltimore exhibit, for the greater part of the way, an aspect of savage desolation. Chasms to the depth of six, eight, or ten feet occur at numerous intervals. A stagecoach which left Philadelphia on the 5th of February, 1796, took five days to go to Baltimore. [Twenty miles a day]. The weather for the first four days was good. The roads are in a fearful condition. Coaches are overturned, passengers killed, and horses destroyed by
