“Method is the hinge of business; and there is no method without Punctuality.  Punctuality is important, because it subserves the Peace and Good Temper of a family.  The want of it not only infringes on necessary Duty, but sometimes excludes this duty.  The calmness of mind which it produces is another advantage of Punctuality.  A disorderly man is always in a hurry.  He has no time to speak to you, because he is going elsewhere; and when he gets there, he is too late for his business, or he must hurry away to another before he can finish it.  Punctuality gives weight to character.  ’Such a man has made an appointment; then I know he will keep it.’  And this generates Punctuality in you; for, like other virtues, it propagates itself.  Servants and children must be punctual, when their Leader is so.  Appointments, indeed, become debts.  I owe you Punctuality, if I have made an appointment with you, and have no right to throw away your time, if I do my own.”

Some may inquire, “Who was Joseph Baxendale?” He was, in fact, Pickford and Co., the name of a firm known all over England, as well as throughout the Continent.  Mr. Baxendale was the son of a physician at Lancaster.  He received a good education, went into the cotton trade, and came up to London to represent the firm with which he was connected.  A period of commercial pressure having occurred, he desired to leave the cotton trade and to enter upon some other business.  Mr. Pickford had already begun the business of a Carrier, but he was hampered by want of money.  Mr. Baxendale helped him with capital, and for a time remained a sleeping partner; but finding that the business made no progress, principally for want of management, he eventually determined to take the active part in working and managing the concern.

He threw his whole energies into the firm of Pickford and Co.  He reorganized the agencies, and extended them throughout the kingdom.  He put flying vans upon the road, equal to our express trains; and slow vans, equal to our goods trains.  He utilized the canals to a large extent, putting on flying boats between all the larger towns.  Indeed the roads of the country were then so bad, that in certain seasons it was almost impossible to convey merchandize from one part of the country to another.

The carrying on of such an important and extensive business required much capital, great energy, and first-rate business management.  The horses necessary to carry on the traffic were increased from about fifty, which they were in the time of Pickford, to more than a thousand; for relays of horses were necessary at all the stopping-places on the line of traffic, between London and Manchester, between London and Exeter, and between London and Edinburgh.  A ship-building yard was established, where all the boats, flying and slow, required to carry on the business, were constructed at Mr. Baxendale’s expense.