3-070-496 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Interrupted Journey, 1881. 'The perils of travelling on the high road...before the general introduction of the railway system...There are still living, or there were but lately, persons of our acquaintance who can well recollect the days when the roads out of London crossing Hounslow Heath and Finchley Common, or Shooters' Hill, in Kent, were much infested, in some seasons, with armed and mounted robbers, usually riding in couples, ready to attack the post-chaise or private carriage of travellers likely to have a good sum of money with them. Members of Parliament and other gentlemen of rank and wealth, bringing their families up to town or returning to their homes in the country, were not less exposed to the risk of such depredations than commercial men charged with the cash of their employers. We owe to a combination of modern improvements - the railway, the police, the electric telegraph, and the use of cheques on our bankers, instead of carrying about full purses of gold - the rarity of forcible robbery of travellers in our own country'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.