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CHAPTER XIX
REMINISCENCES
By The RT. Hom. Sir John H. A. Macdonald, K.C.B.
Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland
I ask to be allowed in making a start to go a little further back in reminiscence than the time of the present development of road traction. In my youth I was fond, as I still am, of horse-driving, and took driving tours in the centre of England and of Scotland, and most delightful they were. But in passing through charming country scenes which never meet the eye of the railway traveller, it was impossible to resist an occasional cloud of melancholy when traversing the magnificent old mail roads, often seeing no living person for miles and miles, and drawing up at grand old country posting inns with great empty yards and ranges of rooms above them with closed shutters; once the scenes of life and cheerfulness, but now reduced to a tap-room and accommodation for a lodger or two. The invasion of the rail had swept the country of its traffic, and the Red Lion and the Blue Boar languished, the boots of the Boar and the chambermaid of the Lion, reconciled by joint misfortune and agreeing for once—as Mr. D'Israeli recounted—in denouncing the 'igominy o' railroads.' Who at that time would have believed that at the end of the century, when the railways were congested with traffic, and the public under the tyranny of oppressive traffic rates, a new mode of locomotion would assert itself, reviving the road once more, not only for touring and social life, but also for the benefit of the farmer and the merchant, cheapening and facilitating road traffic both
