Imp ;|i mmm 1 JOHNA.SEAVERNS TUFTS UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 3 9090 013 415 464 Vetennary Library Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine 200 We^boro Rd. North Grdfton. ^A Ol^^g CARRIAGES ^ COACHES BY THE SAME AUTHOR BIOGRAPHICAL ROBERT DODSLEY: POET, PUBLISHER AND PLAYWRIGHT JOHN BASKERVILLE : A MEMOIR [with R. K. Dent] NOVELS THE PRISON WITHOUT A WALL THE SCANDALOUS MR. WALDO THE LITTLE GOD'S DRUM THE MAN APART PAMPHLETS THE DUST WHICH IS GOD 5000 A.D. t CARRIAGES & COACHES THEIR HISTORY ^ THEIR EVOLUTION By Ralph Straus FULLY ILLUSTRATED WITH REPRO- DUCTIONS FROM OLD PRINTS, CONTEM- PORARY DRAWINGS & PHOTOGRAPHS London : Published by Martin Secker at Number Five John Street Adelphi mcmxii PRINTED BY VnLLIAM BRENDON AMD SON, LTD. PLYMOUTH Co to 5ii To B. S. S. ^*. Contents CHAPTER PAGE I. THE PRIMITIVE VEHICLE 17 II. THE AGE OF LITTERS 42 III. THE INTRODUCTION OF THE COACH 56 IV. INTERLUDE OF THE CHAIR 85 V. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 109 VL EARLY GEORGIAN CARRIAGES 147 VIL THE WAR OF THE WHEELS 176 VIII. THE AGE OF TRANSITION 204 IX. INVENTIONS GALORE 227 X. MODERN CARRIAGES 255 INDEX 287 List of Illustrations The State Coach of Great Britain Types of Primitive Carts Assyrian Chariot CiSIUM Carpentum Pilentum Benna Fourteenth Century English Carriage Fourteenth Century Reaper's Cart Elizabethan Carriages Neapolitan Sedan-chair The " Social Pinch " Sedans Coach in the Time of Charles I Coach in the Time of Charles II Early French Gig Early Italian Gig The State Carriage of Bavaria The Darnley Chariot Queen Anne's Procession to the Cathedral of S. Paul *'The Carriage Match" " Phaetona, or Modern Female Taste" " Sir Gregory Gigg " George Ill's Posting Chariot The Lord Chancellor of Ireland's Coach "English Travelling, or the First Stage from Dover" „ "French Travelling, or the First Stage from Calais" Early American Shay English Posting Chariot Frontispiece facing pagt 20 ■>■> 11 22 » JJ 3° >> )> 3° >> )j 32 »> J> 32 jj J> 46 »> J) 46 }> !J 70 n 11 100 J> J! 104 » JJ 104 J> JJ 112 >> JJ 112 » JJ 136 >> JJ 142 J> JJ 148 JJ JJ 152 JJ JJ 158 J> JJ 190 J> 11 196 JJ JJ 196 JJ JJ 206 JJ JJ 208 JJ JJ 216 JJ JJ 218 JJ JJ 220 JJ JJ 220 12 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Barouche facing pa se 232 Landaulet j> » 232 Stanhope >» .. 234 Tilbury »» » 234. Cabriolet >» » 234 "The Coffin-Cab" >» „ 246 London Cab of 1823 »> „ 246 Dioropha >» >» 252 Brougham in 1859 »» ». 252 Edward Vll's Coronation Landau )» » 258 Dress Coach, i860 » „ 260 English State Carriage, i 911 >» „ 260 *' Princess Victoria in Her Pony Phaeton" »» „ 266 Canoe-shaped Landau n „ 268 Drag »i „ 268 Modern American Station Wagon » » 274 Modern American Buggv M » 274 Preface I AM not a coachbuilder. Though such a pro- nouncement will seem entirely superfluous to any coachbuilder who reads the following pages, it is not perhaps a wholly unnecessary remark. For, with one or two exceptions, such books upon the evolu- tion or structure of vehicles as have been written have been the work of industrious coachbuilders. And I have not the least doubt that they are eminently the fit and proper folk to carry out any such task. It is a melancholy fact, however, that useful though these books may be to coachbuilders, they lack, again with one or two exceptions, any general interest to the layman. The language in which they are written is, to say the least, peculiar, and the authors have obviously had small training in the art of book-making. On the other hand, there is a whole library of books dealing with the old stage and mail coaches, with all the romance and adventure of the roads, packed with delightful anecdotes and personal reminis- cences. But such books hardly touch upon the structure of the coaches themselves, and, so far as I know, there is no book entirely devoted to a non-technical description of carriages in general, based upon a chronological arrange- ment. The nearest approach to such a book is Mr. G. A. 14 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Thrupp's The History of Coaches, published in 1877, a meritorious undertaking from which I have freely- quoted. Here, however, there are numerous gaps which I have endeavoured to fill, and the various lectures from which it was composed do not fit together so aptly as might be. As a whole, it is diffuse. Sir Walter Gilbey's two books. Early Carriages and Roads and Modern Carriages, have also been of great assistance, but here, too, the ground covered is not so large as in the following pages. Other pamphlets and small books have appeared in this country, but seemingly owe a great deal of their information to Mr. Thrupp's work. Indeed, I notice that some of the authors have been almost criminally forgetful of their inverted commas. For purely technical details there are, of course, many books and trade papers to consult ; but with these I have not been concerned. In the present book there are, indeed, large gaps, and it is not to be taken either as a manual of the art of coachbuilding or as a history of locomotion. It is merely a book about carriages, in which particular regard has been paid to chronological sequence, and particular attention to such individual carriages as have at all withstood the test of social history. And it is written by a layman who, until he enquired into the subject, had never looked at a carriage with any particular emotion. The result of his labours, therefore, is not meant for the expert, but for the general reader, who may have pondered over the various vehicles he has seen, and idly wondered how they may have been evolved. Where possible, I have endeavoured to quote from PREFACE 15 contemporary authors and documents. Most of such quotations are now included in a carriage book for the first time. I wish to thank the various publishers and authors who have given me permission to reprint illustrations of carriages in books published or written hy them. Also I am obliged to Messrs. Maggs Bros., the well-known booksellers, for permissionTto photograph a rare print entitled The Carriage Match, in their possession. RALPH STRAUS. Badminton Club, Jugust, 19 12. Chapter the First THE PRIMITIVE VEHICLE "This is a traveller, sir, knows men and Manners, and has plough'd up sea so far, Till both the poles have knock'd ; has seen the sun Take coach, and can distinguish the colour Of his horses, and their kinds." Beaumont and Fletcher. IT has been suggested that although In a generality of cases nature has forestalled the ingenious mechanician, man for his wheel has had to evolve an apparatus which has no counterpart in his primitive environment — In other words, that there is nothing in nature which corresponds to the wheel. Yet even the most superficial inquiry into the nature of the earliest vehicles must do much to refute such a suggestion. Primitive wheels were simply thick logs cut from a tree-trunk, probably for firewood. At some time or another these logs must have rolled of their own accord from a higher to a lower piece of ground, and from man's observation of this simple phenomenon must have come the first idea of a wheel. If a round object could roll of its own accord, it could also be made to roll. B 17 1 8 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Yet it is to be noticed that the earliest methods of locomotion, other than those purely muscular, such as walking and riding, knew nothing of wheels. Such methods depended primarily upon the enormously significant discovery that a man could drag a heavier weight than he could carry, and what applied to a man also applied to a beast. Possibly such discovery fol- lowed on the mere observation of objects being carried down the stream of some river, and perhaps a rudely constructed raft should be considered to be the earliest form of vehicle. From the raft proper to a raft to be used upon land was but a step, and the first land vehicle, whenever or wherever it was made, assuredly took a form which to this day is in common use in some countries. This was the sledge. On a sledge heavy loads could be dragged over the ground, and experience sooner or later must have shown what was the best form of apparatus for such work. As so often happens, moreover, in mechanical contrivances, the earliest sledge of which there is record — a sculptured representation in an Egyptian temple — bears a remark- able resemblance to those in use at the present time.^ Then, as now, men used two long runners with up- turned ends in front and cross-pieces to unite them and bear the load. Such sledges were largely used to convey the huge stones with which the Egyptians raised 1 " In Europe, sledge is the name applied to a low kind of cart, but in America the word has been abbreviated to sled or changed to sleigh, which in either case involves the idea that a sliding vehicle is meant. Jn the rural districts, the farmer employs a machine we call a stone-sledge. This is commonly made from a plank, the flat under surface of which is forced along the surface of the ground by ox-power." The World on Wheels, Ezra N. Stratton. New York, 1888. THE PRIMITIVE VEHICLE 19 their solemn masses of masonry and, incidentally, also as a hearse. In time, however, it was found that better results were obtained by the use of another and rather more complicated apparatus which had for its chief com- ponent — a wheel. This second discovery that to roll a burden proved an easier task than to drag it was fraught with such tremendous consequences as altered the entire history of the world. It remained to find a better fulcrum than that afforded by the rough turf over which such logs, when burdened, were rolled. What probably followed is well described by Bridges Adams. ^ " The next process," he thinks, " would naturally be that of cutting a hole through the roller in which to insert the lever. The convenience of several holes in the circumference of the roller would then become apparent, and there would be formed an embryo wheel nave. It could not fail to be remarked also, that the larger the roller, the greater the facility for turning it, and consequently the greater the load that could be borne upon it." Owing to the difficulty of using such large logs, he goes on to suggest, a time would come when it was found that a roller need not bear upon the ground throughout its length, but only at its extremities. So from the single roller would be evolved two rough wheels joined by a beam, square at first though afterwards rounded, upon which could be fixed a frame for the load. Such axle and wheels would revolve together and keep the required position by means of pieces of wood which may be compared with the thole-pins of a boat. ^ English Pleasure Carriages. By William Bridges Adams. London, •*«4.' 20 CARRIAGES AND COACHES And it is a remarkable fact that until last century such primitive carts were in use in Portugal and parts of South America. The chief drawback to a vehicle of this kind is its inability to turn in a small space, and the pioneers, whoever they were, finally discovered the principle of the fixed axle-tree, the wheels revolving upon their own centre. So, " instead of fixing the cross-beam or axle in a square hole," these pioneers " would contrive it to play easily in a round one of a conical form, that being the easiest form of adjustment." Such a car as this, with solid wheels and a rude frame, was used by the Romans, and is still to be seen in parts of Chili. The next process in the evolution of the wheel doubtless followed upon the necessity of econo- mising with large sections of wood, and there was finally invented a wheel made of three portions — a central pierced part, the nave, an outside circular piece, the rim or felloe, and two or more cross-pieces, joining the two, the spokes. Of these the felloes would tend to wear soonest, and a double set would be applied to the spokes, as was the case until recently in the ox-carts of the Pampas, or barcos de tierruy as they were called by the natives. And indeed, the first carriages of which we have particular Information, the chariots of the Egyptians and their neighbours, differ essentially from such primi- tive carts only in the delicacy and ornamentation of the carriage body. Various vehicles are mentioned in the Bible, though one must be chary of differentiating between them merely because the translators have given them different names. Both waggons and chariots are mentioned in Types oj Primitive Carts THE PRIMITIVE VEHICLE 21 Genesis. Jacob's family were sent to him in a waggon. Joseph rode in the second chariot of Pharaoh as a par- ticular mark of favour. At the time of the Exodus, war-chariots formed an important part of the Egyptian army, and indeed, right through the various dynasties, there is an almost continuous mention of their use.^ "The deft craftsmen of Egypt," says Breasted,^ "soon mastered the art of chariot-making, and the stables of the Pharaoh contained thousands of the best horses to be had in Asia." About 1 500 B.C. Thutmoselll went forth to battle in " a glittering chariot of electrum." He slew the enemy's leader, and took captive their princes and "their chariots, wrought with gold, bound to their horses." These barbarians also had " chariots of silver," though this probably means that they were built of wood and strengthened or decorated with silver. At the dis- solution of the Empire the Hittites had increased wonderfully in power, and it is told of them that they excelled all other nations in the art of chariotry. The .; . Hittite chariot was larger and more heavily built than '" that of the Egyptians, as it bore three men, driver, bow- ■^> man, and shield-bearer, while the Egyptian was satisfied with two. The enormous number of chariots used in warfare is shown by the fact that in the fourteenth ,^ century before Christ, when the Egyptians defeated the Syrians at Megiddo, nearly a thousand were captured, and against Ramses II the Hittites put no less than 'i 2500 into the field. 1 " They also possessed baggage-carts shaped like the chariots. One of these appears to have had a very high, six-spoked wheel and a curved roof box. In front of the box is a low seat, from underneath which projects a crooked drag-pole." Stratton. • « 2 J History of Egypt. J. H. Breasted. New York. 1909. 22 CARRIAGES AND COACHES *' The Egyptian chariots," says H. A. White,^ " were of" light and simple construction, the material employed '■: . being wood, as is proved by sculptures representing the manufacture of chariots. The axle was set far back, and the bottom of the car, which rested on this and on the pole, was sometimes formed of a frame interlaced with a network of thongs or ropes. The chariot was entirely open behind and for the greater part of the sides, which were formed by a curved rail rising from each side of the back of the base, and resting on a wooden upright above the pole in front. From this rail, which was strengthened by leather thongs, a bow-case of leather, often richly ornamented, hung on the right-hand side, slanting forwards ; while the quiver and spear cases inclined in the opposite direction. The wheels, which were fastened on the axle by a linch-pin secured with a ' ' short thong, had six spokes in the case of war chariots, but in private vehicles sometimes only four.^ The ■^\^ ,^ pole sloped upwards, and to the end of it a curved yoke was attached. A small saddle at each end of the yoke rested on the withers of the horses, and was secured in 'X its place by breast-band and girth. No traces are to be seen. The bridle was often ornamented ; a bearing-rein '^^r '-...:_ . was fastened to the saddle, and the other reins passed ■ -^^Tiirt-'""- through a ring at the side of this. The number of -I' ■,''-X%^ horses to a chariot seems always to have been two ; and ■ ^if ' ~ in the car, which contained no seat, only rarely are more •^ than two persons depicted, except in triumphal pro- cessions. "Assyrian chariots did not differ in any essential points wfv **• *■■<'- i. ^ Dictionary of the Bible. 1906. Edited by J. Hastings. Art. Chariot. 2 " We account for this difference by supposing that in battle, when ^^'"'.- success depended in a great measure upon the stability of the chariot, special care was taken to provide a strong wheel, while a weaker one was _^-_ considered good enough for a more peaceful employment, a four-spoked wheel in those days being much cheaper and lighter." Stratton. Assyrian Chariot {From Smith's " Concise History of English C/i/>;, a kind of family sociable, the dfxaia, a waggon, the KamOpov, and the (popeiov^ or litter. THE PRIMITIVE VEHICEE 27 The apmdfjLaia was a large four-wheeled waggon, enclosed by curtains and provided with a Kafxapa or roof. Four or more horses were required to draw it. It was so large that a person could lie in it at full length, and, indeed, on many occasions it acted the part of a hearse. By far the most extraordinary hearse ever built was a apixaixa^a used to convey the body of Alexander the Great — himself the possessor of numerous carriages — from Babylon to Alexandria. " It was prepared," says Thrupp, " during two years, and was designed by the celebrated architect and engineer Hieronymus. It was 18 feet long and 12 feet wide, on four massive wheels, and drawn by sixty-four mules, eight abreast. The car was com- posed of a platform with a lofty roof supported by eighteen columns, and v/as profusely adorned with drapery and gold and jewels ; round the edge of the roof was a row of golden bells ; in the centre was a throne, and before it the coffin ; around were placed the weapons of war and the arms that Alexander had used." The ap/md/uLaia was also largely used by the ladies of Greece, who when they drove forth were careful to see that the curtains completely enclosed them. The dfxa^a, also a four-wheeled waggon, was probably similar to the apij-dixa^a^ though built upon a less imposing scale. The a7r?/i/>/ was a still lighter carriage. It is described by Herodotus, and seems to have been a covered vehicle surrounded by silken curtains which could be pulled back when required. Its interior was generally fur- nished with cushions of goat leather. Two wheels were more frequent, but four were sometimes found. It was said that Timoleon, an old blind man, drove upon one 28 CARRIAGES AND COACHES occasion into the senate house and delivered a speech from his utd'jvi]. In some cases a two-wheeled carriage of this kind was not furnished with curtains, but enclosed in an oval-shaped covering of basket-work. Hesiod objected to such a conveyance because of its inability to keep out the dust. Little is known of the KamOpovj but it was a Laconian car made of wood, with an arched, plaited covering, used chiefly by women. Doubtless it was little different from the clttw)]. Coming to the Romans, we find a far greater variety of vehicles, though the descriptions that have come down are meagre and not particularly distinctive. That the Romans early realised the enormous importance, both military and otherwise, of carriages, is shown by their amazing roads. Such roads had never before been con- structed. They were, says Gibbon, " accurately divided by milestones, and ran in a direct line from one city to another, with very little respect for the obstacles, either of nature or private property. Mountains were per- forated, and bold arches thrown over the broadest and most rapid streams. The middle part of the road was raised into a terrace, which commanded the adjacent country, consisted of several layers of sand, gravel, and cement, and was paved with large stones, or, in some places near the capital, with granite." Probably the most famous of these roads was the Appian Way, connecting Rome with Capua. It was wide enough, according to Procopius, who marched along it in the sixth century, for two chariots to pass one another without inconvenience or delay, a matter certainly not possible, for instance, in most of the Eastern cities at that time. And so, with the finest engineers the world THE PRIMITIVE VEHICLE 29 had seen linking up various cities, cross-country travel- ling in a carriage, from being well-nigh impossible, became comparatively easy. Gibbon mentions in this connec- tion the surprising feat of one Caesarius, who journeyed from Antioch to Constantinople, a distance of 66^ miles, in six days. The Roman war-chariot, or currus, was practically the same as the Greek a^yua, though certain modifications were introduced. More than two horses were driven, and from their number came several words, such as sejugisy octojugisy and decemjugisy which sufficiently explain themselves. It appears, moreover, that the currus was occasionally driven by four horses without either pole or yoke, and it has been suggested that in such a case the driver probably stopped the car by bearing all his weight on to the back of the body, so that its floor would touch the ground, thus forming a primitive brake. Besides the currus^ and even before their marvellous roads had been laid down, the Romans possessed other cars. The earliest of these seems to have been a long, covered, four-wheeled waggon, called arcera^ which was mainly used to carry infirm or very old people. In this the driver sat on a seat in front of the body, and drove two horses abreast. Though the most ancient of the Roman carriages, the arcera^ as seen on monuments, has a very modern appearance. In more luxurious times the lecHcay a large litter, seems to have led to its gradual extinction. The essedum^ at one time very popular in Italy, was brought in the first place to Rome by Julius Caesar. It was the war-chariot of the Britons, and was entirely unlike the Roman or Egyptian cars. The wheels were 30 CARRIAGES AND COACHES much larger, the entrance was in front and not at the back, there was a seat, and the pole, instead of running up to the horses' necks, remained horizontal, and was so wide that the driver could step along it. The British charioteers could drive their cars at a very great rate, and were exceedingly agile on the flat pole, from the extremity of which they threw their missiles. The cars were purposely made as noisy as possible to strike dismay into the enemy's lines. At times the wheels were fur- nished with scythes, which projected from the axle-tree ends, and helped to maim those unfortunate enough to be run down.^ Cicero, hearing good opinions of it, besought a friend to bring him a good pattern from Britain, and took occasion to add that the chariot was the only pleasing thing which that benighted country produced. The essedum speedily became popular in Rome, though not as an engine of war. Decorated and constructed of fine materials, it was the fashionable pleasure carriage. Curiously enough, however, the seat which had been so conspicuous a feature of the chariot in its native place was not used in Rome. The owner drove the essedum himself, and yoked two horses to the pole. There was some opposition to its use on the grounds of undue luxury, and a tribune who rode abroad in one was on that account considered effeminate. Seneca put the esseda deaurata amongst things qu^e ma- tronarum usihus necessaria sint. Emperors and generals used them as travelling carriages, and they were to be hired at regular posting-stations. A somewhat similar ^ carriage, the covinus^ was also in use in various countries at this date. This was covered in except in front ; like 1 See p. 39. Cisium Tkc Primitive Gig [From a Roman Inscription) Agrifpina's Carfentum [From a 'T^oman Coin) THE PRIMITIVE VEHICLE 31 the essedum, it had no seat for the driver, and in times of war it seems to have had scythes attached to the axle in the British fashion. Little, however, is known of it, and it may be dismissed here with a mere mention of its existence. The essedum is of particular importance insomuch as it may be considered to be the prototype of all the vehicles of the curricle or gig type. The first of these in use amongst the Romans was the cisiumy whose form is well shown on a monumental column near Treves. It was surprisingly like the ordinary gig of modern times. The body at first was fixed to the frames, but afterwards seems to have been suspended by rough traces or straps. The entrance was in front, there was a seat for two, and underneath this a large box or case. Mules were gene- rally used to draw it, one, a pair, or, according to Ausonius, three — in which case a postilion sat on the third horse. They were built primarily for speed, and were in common use throughout Italy and Gaul, though the ladies, unwilling to be seen in an uncovered car- riage, drove in other conveyances. The cisium on the whole must have been comfortable and light. Seneca admits that you could write a letter easily while driving in one. And in due course the new carriage became so popular that it could be hired, and the cisiarii^ or hack- ney coachmen, could be penalised for careless driving. Indeed, so very modern were the Roman ideas upon the question of travel, that there were certain places at which the cisium was always to be found — a kind of primitive cab-rank. Coming to the larger waggons and carriages, there -^Z were the sarracum, the plaustrum^ the carpentum^ the pilen- Z ♦*■ -~i 32 CARRIAGES AND COACHES turn, the benna, the reda^ the carruca^ the pegma — a huge wheeled apparatus used for raising great weights, par- ticularly in theatrical displays — and a mule-drawn litter, the basterna. Of these the sarracum was a common cart used by the country folk for conveying produce. It had either two or four wheels, and was occasionally used by passengers, though, as Cicero observed, as a conveyance the sarracum was very vulgar. It was not confined to Italy, but was common enough amongst those barbaric tribes against whom Rome was so often victorious. It was in sarraca, moreover, that the bodies were removed from Rome in times of plague. Rather lighter than this carriage, though heavy enough to our modern ideas, was the -plaustrum^ an ancient two or four-wheeled waggon of rude construction. This was, in its primitive form, just a bare platform with a large pole projecting from the axle ; there were no supporting ribs at all, and the load was simply placed on the platform. Upright boards, or openwork rails, however, were used to make sides, and at a later period a large basket was fastened on to the platform by stout thongs. The wheels of the plaustrum were ordinarily solid, of a kind called tympana^ ^ Stratton treats of these Roman carriages and carts in considerable detail, and mentions in addition to the plosiellum, or small plaustrum^ the carrusy monarchm, and btrotum. Of these the carrus, or cart, differed from the plaustrum in the following particulars : " The box or form could not be removed, as in the former case, but was fastened upon the axle-tree ; it lacked the broad flooring of planks or boards, which served as a receptacle for certain commodities when the sides were removed ; the wheels were higher [and] . . . spoked, not solid like the tympana.'" The carrus clabukrius, or stave-waggon, could be lengthened or shortened as required. The monarchus was a very light two-wheeled vehicle something like the cisium. The birotum was also a small two-wheeled vehicle, with a leather-covered seat, used in the time of Constantine, an "early post-chaise," as Stratton puts it. Pilentum The State Carriage of the Romans Bemia THE PRIMITIVE VEHICLE 33 or drums, and were nearly a foot thick. Such a cart was but a slow vehicle, and could turn only with great difficulty. It was drawn by oxen or mules, and like the sarracum was also used to carry passengers.^ The carpentum^ though two-wheeled, bore resemblance to the Greek ap/udfxa^a. It had an arched covering. It was in use during very early times at Rome, though only distinguished citizens were privileged to ride in it. The currus arcuafus, given by Numa to the Flamines, was no doubt a form of carpentum^ which was also the travel- ling carriage of the elder Tarquin. It seems to have been evolved from the plaustrum, being originally little more than a covered cart ; but in the days of the Empire it became most luxurious, and was not only furnished with curtains of the richest silk, but seems to have had solid panellings and sculptures attached to the body. Agrippina's carpentum^ for instance, had fine paintings on its panels, and its roof was supported by figures at the four corners. Like the apyua/za£a, it was also used as a hearse. Two mules were required to ^ The carts of north Italy in the eighteenth century had remained practically unchanged. Edv.ard Wright, who visited Italy in 1719, thus describes them : " The carriages in Lombardy, and indeed throughout all Italy, are for the rr ost part drawn with oxen ; which are of a whitish colour : they have very low wheels. Some I saw without spokes, solid like mill-stones ; such as I have seen describ'd in some antique basso- relievos and Mosaicks. The pole they draw by is sloped upwards towards the end ; which is rais'd considerably above their heads ; from whence a chain, or rope, is let down and fasten'd to their horns ; which keeps up their heads, and serves to back the carriage. In some parts they use no yokes, but draw all by the horn, by a sort of a brace brought about the roots of them : the backs of the oxen are generally cover'd with a cloth. In the kingdom of Naples, and some other parts, they use buffaloes in their carriages, &c. These do somewhat resemble oxen : but are most sour, ill-looking animals, and very vicious ; for the better management of them they generally put rings in their noses." 34 CARRIAGES AND COACHES draw it. The pi/enlum was a carriage of a more official character. It may be called the state coach of the Romans — a four-wheeled becushioned car with a roof supported by pillars, but, unlike the carpentum^ open at the sides. It was always considered to be the most comfortable of the Roman carriages, and may in- deed have been hung upon " swing-poles " between the wheels. The social difference between the pilentum and the carpentum may be deduced from one of the many carriage laws passed by the Senate. The Roman mat- rons were allowed to drive in the carpentum on all occa- sions, but might use the pilentum only at the games or public festivals. Such " sumptuary laws " were con- stantly being passed, and a special vote was even required to enable the mother of Nero to drive in her carriage in the city itself. It was not until the fourth century a.d. that all such restrictions were banished. Pliny mentions another carriage of imperial Rome — the carruca^ which had four wheels and was used equally in the city and for long journeys. Nero travelled with great numbers of them — on one occasion with no less than three thousand. In Rome itself the fashion- able citizen drove forth in a carruca that was covered with plates of bronze, silver, or even gold. Enormous sums were spent upon their decoration. Painters, sculp- tors, and embroiderers were employed. Martial speaks of an aurea carruca costing as much as a large farm. The carruca^ indeed, may be said to correspond with the phaeton, which was so fashionable in England towards the end of the eighteenth century. As with the phaeton, so with the carruca — the higher it was built the better pleased was its owner. Various kinds o^ carruca existed. THE PRIMITIVE VEHICLE 35 The carruca argentatce were those granted by Alexander Severus to the senators. There is also mention of a carruca domestoria. Unfortunately, however, no contem- porary representation of a carriage can definitely be said to be a carruca. Little enough, moreover, is known of the two other waggons, the reda and the benna. The reda was a large four-wheeled waggon used mainly to convey agricultural produce. It seems to have been brought into Italy from Wallachia. The henna was a cart whose body was formed entirely of basket-work. There is a drawing of it on the column of Antoninus at Rome. A similar vehicle persists to this day in Italy, South Ger- many, and Belgium, and bears a similar name. Under the Empire, then, carriage-building flourished, particularly after Alexander Severus had put an end to all the older restrictions. Various forms of carriages were to be seen on the roads, and there was, as I have hinted, even an attempt at a spring. One of the carriages of this period is definitely described as " borne on long poles, fixed to the axles." " Now a certain amount of spring," says Thrupp, " can be ob- tained from the centre of a long, light pole. The Neapolitan Calesse, the Norwegian Carriole, and the Yarmouth Cart were all made with a view to obtaining ease by suspension on poles between bearings placed far apart. In these the seat is placed midway between the two wheels and the horse, on very long shafts, which are there made into wooden springs." And in the old Roman carriages, he goes on to say, " the weight was carried between the front and hind axles, on long poles or wooden springs. The under-carriage of the later four-wheeled vehicles used by the Romans was, in all 36 CARRIAGES AND COACHES probability, the same as is in use at the present day, both in this country and on the Continent, and indeed in America, for the under-carriages of agricultural wag- gons." Even with such splendid roads as the Romans possessed, however, the streets of their towns do not seem to have been very wide, and this must be one of the reasons for the early appearance of another kind of conveyance, the litter, which, during the dark ages, was practically the only carriage to be used. These litters came from the East. The Babylonians in particular preferred to be carried about in a chair or couch rather than to be jolted in a carriage. Eric- thonius, a lame man, is supposed to have introduced them into Athens, where they were known as (popela or a-KifjiTroSia. Speedily they became popular, especially with the women. Magnificently decorated, the (popelov was constantly carried along the narrow streets, and on being brought over to Rome proved no less agreeable to the Romans. The lecnca, or, as it was called at a later period, the se//a^ may in the first instance have been used to carry the sick, but in a short time became a common form of conveyance. This palanquin had an arched roof of leather stretched over four posts. The sides were covered by curtains, though at a later period it would seem that crude windows of talc were used. The interior was furnished with pillows, and when stand- ing the litter rested upon four feet. Two slaves bore it by means of long poles loosely attached. In Martial's time these kdicarii wore red liveries, and were sometimes preceded by a third slave to make way. Julius Caesar restricted their numbers, and in the reign of Claudius permission to use them was granted only as a particular THE PRIMITIVE VEHICLE 37 mark of the royal favour. Several varieties of litter appeared. The sella portatoria or gestatoria was a small sedan chair. Some, however, were constructed to hold two. The cathedra, which was probably identical with the sella muliebris mentioned by Suetonius, was mostly used by women. The basterna was a much larger litter, also used by women under the Empire, which was carried by two mules. In this carriage the sides might be opened or closed, and the whole body was frequently gilded. A few other primitive carriages here call for mention. The Dacians, who inhabited parts of what is now Hungary, used square vehicles with four wheels, in which the six spokes widened towards the rims. The Scythians used a peculiar two-wheeled cart consisting of a platform on which was placed a conical covering, resembling in shape a beehive, and made of a basket- v/ork of hazelwood, over which were stretched the skins of beasts or a thatching of reeds. When camping out these people would lift this covering bodily from the cart and use it as a tent. Much the same custom was followed by the wandering Tartars. " Their huts or tents," says Marco Polo, " are formed of rods covered with felt, and being exactly round and nicely put together, they can gather them into one bundle, and make them up as packages, which they carry along with them in their migrations, upon a sort of car with four wheels." " Besides these cars," he continues, " they have a superior kind of vehicle upon two wheels, covered likewise with black felt, and so effectually as to protect those within it from wet during a whole day 38 CARRIAGES AND COACHES of rain. These are drawn by oxen and camels, and serve to convey their wives and children, their utensils, and such provisions as they require." The same traveller described the carriages of Southern China. Speaking of Kin-sai, then the capital, he says, "The main street of the city ... is paved with stone and brick to the width of ten paces on each side, the inter- mediate part being filled up with small gravel, and provided with arched drains for carrying off the rain- water that falls into the neighbouring canals, so that it remains always dry. On this gravel it is that the carriages are continually passing and re-passing. They are of a long shape, covered at top, having curtains and cushions of silk, and are capable of holding six persons. Both men and women who feel disposed to take their pleasure are in the daily practice of hiring them for that purpose, and accordingly at every hour you may see vast numbers of them driven along the middle part of the street." To this day such carriages as are here described can be had for hire in China, though in general they are of a smaller size. In some respects they resembled what is called in this country a tilted cart. The Persians used large chariots in which was built a kind of turret from whose interior the warriors could at once throw their spears and obtain protection. One, taken from an ancient coin, is thus described by Sir Robert Ker Porter in his Travels in Georgia^ Persia^ and opela mentioned in the first chapter, appears to have belonged to the Emperor Charles V, in the first half of the sixteenth century. This, indeed, does bear some resemblance to the common conception of a chair, but the first Sedans of some fifty years later resembled nothing so much as a modern dog-kennel provided with two poles. A more unsociable apparatus was surely never built, and yet its almost immediate popularity is easily explained. With the urban streets not yet properly paved and the eternal jolting of the coach, to the accom- paniment of such a clatter as must have made speech almost impossible, anything in the nature of a conveyance that made at once for physical comfort and comparative silence would have been favourably received. There is mention of a chair being shown in England in 158 I — just at the time when the country was beginning to show an interest in carriages — but it was not until after the death of Elizabeth that such a novelty was seen in the streets of London. You are not wholly surprised, moreover, to hear that the innovation was due to Buckingham, that apostle of luxury, who probably first saw the chair on his visit to Spain with Prince Charles. Indeed the Prince is supposed to have brought back three of them with him. At first, of course, there was opposition. " Every new thing the People disaffect," wrote Arthur Wilson, the historian, "They stumble sometimes, at INTERLUDE OF THE CHAIR 87 the action for the person^ which rises like a little cloud but soon after vanishes. So after, when Buckingham came to be carried upon Men's shoulders the clamour and the noise of it was so extravagant that the People would rail on him in the Streets, loathing that Men should be brought to as servile a condition as Horses. So irksome is every little new impression that breaks an old Custom and rubs and grates against the public humour. But when Time had made these Chairs common, every loose Minion used them, so that that which got at first so much scandal was the means to convey those privately to such places where they might give much more. Just like long hair, at one time described as abominable, at another time approved as beautiful. So various are the fancies of the times ! " It is to be noticed that Buckingham, according to this account, was carried upon men's shoulders. This was the case at first, but such a mode was speedily changed for that of hand-poles — at once safer and more comfortable for the occupant, and certainly more con- venient for the men.^ John Evelyn disagrees with Wilson and ascribes the introduction of the chair into England to Sir Saunders Buncombe, a Gentleman-Pensioner knighted by James I in Scotland in 16 17, who enjoyed Buckingham's patron- age. In his Diary for 1645, ^e writes of the Neapoli- tans : " They greatly affect the Spanish gravity in their habit ; delight in good horses ; the streets are full of gallants on horse-back, in coaches and sedans, from hence brought first into England by Sir Saunders Duncombe." Undoubtedly Duncombe was responsible 1 So Massinger in The Bondman says : — " For their pomp and ease being borne In triumph on men's shoulders." y 88 CARRIAGES AND COACHES for the great popularity of the chair in England, and for a time held a monopoly in such chairs as could be had for hire, but it may be that Buckingham suggested this monopoly in the first place, after the temporary opposition to their use had been overcome. Which rather suggests that Spain was actually the first country where they were used, though this is mere conjecture. In the meantime much was happening to the coaches. They were increasing enormously in number, not only those privately owned, but also those hired out by the day. These latter soon became known as hackney- coaches.^ They seem to have been put on the streets as early as 1605, but "remained in the owner's yards until sent for." In 1633 the Strand was chosen as the first regular stand for such coaches by a Captain Bailey, one of the pioneers of the movement. " I cannot omit to mention," writes Lord Stafford, " any new thing that comes up amongst us though ever so trivial. Here is one Captain Bailey, he hath been a sea captain, but now lives on land about this city where he tries experiments. He hath erected, according to his ability, some four hackney coaches, put his men in livery and appointed them to stand at the Maypole in the Strand, giving them instructions at what rate to carry men into several parts of the town where all day they may be had. Other hackney men veering this way, they flocked to the same place and performed their journeys at the same rate, so that sometimes there is twenty of them together, which dispose up and down, that they and others are to be had everywhere, as water- men are to be had at the waterside. Everybody is 1 The word hackney, possibly derived from the old French Hiiqucnce, was the natural word to be used for a public coach, it being merely a synonym, used by Shakespeare and others, for commoti. INTERLUDE OF THE CHAIR 89 much pleased with it, for whereas before coaches could he had but at great rate " — one recalls the prices paid by Lord Rutland a few years before — *' now a man may have one much cheaper." Most of these coaches that were put on to the streets seem to have been old and disused carriages belonging to the quality. Many of them still bore noble arms, and, indeed, it would seem that when the hackneys were no longer disused noblemen's carriages, the pro- prietors found it advisable to pretend that they were. Nearly every hansom and four-wheeled cab at the end of the nineteenth century bore some sort of coronet on its panels. The drivers of these first hackneys wore large coats with several capes, one over the other, for warmth. London, however, seems to have been the only town in which they were to be seen. " Coaches," wrote Fynes Morison in 161 7, " are not to be hired anywhere but in London. For a day's journey a coach with two horses is let for about los. a day, or 15s. with three horses, the coachman finding the horses' feed." From the same author it would appear that most travellers still doggedly kept to their horses, and indeed, in some counties a horse could be hired for threepence a day, an incredibly small sum. " Carriers," he also records, " have long covered waggons in which they carry pas- sengers too and fro ; but this kind of journeying is very tedious ; so that none but women and people of inferior condition travel in this sort." These were the stage-waggons which in due course gave rise to the stage-coaches, which in their turn were superseded by the mail-coaches. 90 CARRIAGES AND COACHES A similar movement in France gave rise to the ^acres, so called from the sign of St. Fiacre, which adorned one of the principal inns in Paris, in front of which the public coaches stood. In Scotland, too, one Henry- Andersen, a native of Pomerania, had in 1610 been granted a royal patent to provide public coaches in Scotland, and for some years ran a service between Edinburgh and Leith. England had yet to follow Andersen's example, but the hackneys were increasing so rapidly in London that in 1635 a proclamation was issued to suppress them. And it is to be noticed that Taylor's diatribes were directed more particularly against these public conveyances than against the privately owned carriages, which, after all, could hardly affect his trade. The proclamation was as follows : — " That the great numbers of Hackney Coaches of late time seen and kept in London, Westminster, and their Suburbs, and the general and promiscuous use of Coaches there, were not only a great disturbance to his Majesty, his dearest Consort the Queen, the Nobility, and others of 'place and degree, in their -passage through the Streets; but the Streets themselves were so pestered, and the pavements so broken up, that the common passage is thereby hindered and more dangerous ; and the prices of hay and provender and other provisions of stable, thereby made exceeding dear : Wherefore We expressly command and forbid. That, from the feast of St. John the Baptist next coming, no Hackney or Hired Coach, be used or suffered in London, West- minster, or the Suburbs or Liberties thereof, ex- cepting they be to travel at least three miles out of London or Westminster, or the Suburbs thereof. And also, that no person shall go in a Coach in the said Streets, except the owner of the Coach shall con- INTERLUDE OF THE CHAIR 91 stantly keep up Four able Horses for our Service, when required." It is dated January 19th, \6'^^I6, and must have had a considerable, if temporary, effect, for as Samuel Pegge points out in his unfinished manuscript on the early use of coaches ^ it could not " operate much in the King's favour, as it would hardly be worth a Coach-master's while to be at so great a contingent charge as the keep- ing of four horses to be furnished at a moment's warning for His Majesty's occasional employment." It was then that Sir Saunders Duncombe obtained his monopoly, and, of course, everything was in his favour. The actual patent granted to him belongs to the previous year, but the two are approximately contemporary. From a letter written in 1 634 to Lord Stafford, it appears that Duncombe had in that year forty or fifty chairs " making ready for use." Possibly the whole thing was worked up by Buckingham and his satellites. Dun- combe's patent gave the enterprising knight the right " to put forth and lett for hire " the new chairs for a term of fourteen years. In his petition he had explained that " in many parts beyond the seas, the people there are much carried in the Streets in Chairs that are covered ; by which means very few Coaches are used amongst them." And so Duncombe was allowed to " reap some fruit and benefit of his industry," and might " recom- pense himself of the costs, charges, and expences " to which he had, or said he had, been put. For two years these covered chairs held the advantage, and indeed seem to have been exceedingly popular. There is a most amusing pamphlet, which I have already 1 Curialia Miscellanea. Samuel Pegge, F.S.A. London, 1818. 92 CARRIAGES AND COACHES mentioned, " printed by Robert Raworth, for John Crooch," in 1636, entitled Coach and ^edan pleasantly dis- puting for Place and Precedence^ the Brewer s Cart being Moderator. It is signed " Mis-amaxius," and is dedicated "to the Valorous, and worthy all title of Honor, S' Elias Hicks." " Light stufFe," the author calls it, and tells us that he is " no ordinary Pamphleteer . . . onely in Mirth I tried what I could doe upon a running subject, at the request of a friend in the Strand : whose leggs, not so sound as his Judgement, enforce him to keepe his Chamber, where hee can neither sleepe or studie for the clattering of Coaches^ It is an interesting little production, both for its own whimsicalities and for the sidelights it affords into the town's views on the subject of vehicles at the time. It starts with the cuckoo warning the milkmaids of Islington to get back to Finsburie. The writer, accompanied by a Frenchman and a tailor, walks back to the city, and in a narrow street comes across a coach and a sedan quarrelling about which of them is to " take the wall." "Wee perceived two lustie fellowes to justle for the wall, and almost readie to fall together by the eares, the one (the lesser of the two) was in a suite of greene after a strange manner, windowed before and behind with Isen-glasse^ having two handsome fellowes in greene coats attending him, the one went before, the other came behind ; their coats were lac'd down the back with a greene-lace sutable, so were their halfe sleeves, which perswaded me at first they were some cast suites of their Masters ; their backs were harnessed with leather cingles, cut out of a hide, as broad as Z^/^/^/z-collops of Bacon. " The other was a thick burly square sett fellow, in a doublet of Black-leather, Brasse-button'd down the brest, INTERLUDE OF THE CHAIR 93 Backe, Sleeves, and winges, with monstrous wide bootes, fringed at the top, with a net fringe, and a round breech (after the old fashion) guilded, and on his back-side an Atcheivement of sundry Coats in their propper colors, quarterd with Crest, Helme and Mantle, besides here and there, on the sides of a single Escutchion or crest, with some Emblematicall Word or other ; I supposed, they were made of some Pendants, or Banners, that had beene stollen, from over some Monument, where they had long hung in a Church. " Hee had onely one man before him, wrapt in a red cloake, v/ith wide sleeves, turned up at the hands, and cudgell'd thick on the backe and shoulders with broad shining lace (not much unlike that which Mummers make of strawe hatts) and of each side of him, went a Lacquay, the one a French boy, the other Irish, all sut- able alike : The French-man (as I learned afterward) when his Master was in the Countrey, taught his lady and his daughter French : Ushers them abroad to pub- licke meetings, and assemblies, all saving the Church whither shee never came : The other went on errands, help'd the maide to beate Bucks, fetch in water, carried up meate, and waited at the Table." The writer attempts mediation, and his offer is favour- ably received. The combatants explain who they are. The burly fellow speaks first : — " My name Sir (quoth hee) is Coach^ who am a Gen- tleman of an anciente house, as you may perceive by my so many quarter'd coates, of Dukes^ Marquises, Earles, Viscounts, ^^rowj. Knights, and Gentlemen, there is never a Lord or Lady in the land but is of my acquaintance ; my imployment is so great, that I am never at quiet, day or night ; I am a Benefactor to all Meetings, Play-houses, Mercers shops. Taverns, and some other houses of recreation. . . . This other that offers me the wrong, they call him Mounsier Sedan, some Mr. Chair, a Greene- 94 CARRIAGES AND COACHES goose hatch'd but the other day . . . and whereas hee is able with all the helpe and furtherance hee can make and devise, to goe not above a mile in an houre ; as grosse as I am, I can runne three or foure in halfe an houre ; yea, after dinner, when my belly is as full as it can hold (and I may say to you) of dainty bitts too." Whereupon the sedan chimes in : — " Sir, the occasion of our difference was this : Whe- ther an emptie Coach, that has a Lords head painted Coate and Crest, as Lion, Bull, Elephant, &c. upon it without, might take the wall of a Sedan that had a knighte alive within it." I confess, he goes on to say, 1 am "a meere stranger, till of late in E7igla7id ; therefore, if the Law of Hospitalitie be observed (as England hath beene accounted the most hospitable kingdome of the World,) I ought to be the better entertained, and used, (as I am sure I shall) and find as good friends, as Coach hath any,it is not his bigge lookes, nor his nimble tongue, that so runnes upon wheeles, shall scare mee ; hee shall know that I am above him both in esteeme, and dignitie, and hereafter will know my place better. . . . Neither, I hope, will any thinke the worse of mee, for that 1 am a Forreiner ; hath not your Countrey Coach of England been extreemly enriched by strangers ? " Indeed, all your luxuries, he continues, are foreign, your perfumes are Italian, and your perukes made in France. For some time it seems that Sedan is getting the best of it. Whereas the coach, he argues, has to wait out in the cold streets often for hours at a time, he is many times admitted into the privacy of my Lady's chamber, where he is rubbed clean both within and without. "And the plain troath is," he concludes, "I will no longer bee made a foole by you ... the kenell is your INTERLUDE OF THE CHAIR 95 naturall walke." At this moment a carman appears and supports the sedan. Coaches, he says, keep the town awake, endanger the lives of children, and, particularly in the suburbs, " be-dash gentlemen's gowns." There then follows a curious piece of dialogue between Sedan and Powel, a Welshman, one of his attendants : — " Sedan. We have our name from Sedanum^ or Sedan^ that famous Citie and Universitie, belonging to the Dukes oi Bevillon^ and where hee keepes his Court." " Towel. Nay, doe you heare mee Master, it is from Sedanny, which in our British language, is a brave, faire, daintie well-favoured Ladie, or prettie sweete wench, and wee carrie such some time Master. . . ." Most of the morning is wasted by such desultory talk, and the street becomes blocked. There comes on the scene a waterman, who, of course, is equally antagonistic to both, and would throw coach and sedan into the Thames if he were not afraid of blocking the stream, and so bringing harm to himself. There follows him a country farmer, who thinks the sedan the honester and humbler of the two, but really knows very little about it. "I heare no great ill of you," he is good enough to say, but is bound to add, " I have had no acquaintance with your cowcumber-cullor'd men." Yet in the country he has in his way tried a sedan-chair, which is a "plaine wheele-barrow," just as his cart is his coach " wherein now and then for my pleasure I ride, my maides going along with me." But if they both come to Lincolnshire, the sedan, he thinks, will receive a warmer welcome than the coach. After him comes a country vicar who has no hesita- tion in accusing the coach of all sorts of robberies. 96 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Soon, he cries, you will be " turned off." You never cared for church, and indeed, during service, you dis- turb everybody rumbling your loudest outside. Also you are so set up that you will never give place " either to cart or carre." A surveyor is less personal than the vicar, but has little good to say of the coach, al- though he agrees with most of the others that for a nobleman of high rank, it is something of a necessity. Finally the brewer appears and speedily puts an end to the wrangle. " With that, comes up unto us a lustie tall fellow, sitting betweene two mostrous great wheeles, drawne by a great old jade blinde of an eie, in a leather pilch, two emptie beere-barrels upon a brewer's slings besides him, and old blew-cap all bedaub'd, and stincking with yest. . . . My name is Eeere-cart., quoth hee, I came into England in Henry the Seventh's time." And the decision of the cart is, of course, that both coach and sedan shall give way to him. They are both to exercise great care, and the sedan is to have the wall. And he adds, turning to the smaller vehicle, a sentence which it is difficult to understand. "You shall never," he says, "carrie Coachman againe, for the first you ever carried was a Coach-man, for which you had like to have sufferd, had not your Master beene more mercifull." Such quarrels were very frequent, not only at this time, but right on through the eighteenth century. Swift in one of his letters to Stella mentions an accident due to the carelessness of a chairman. " The chairman that carried me," he says, " squeezed a great fellow against a wall, who wisely turned his back, and broke INTERLUDE OF THE CHAIR 97 one of the side glasses in a thousand pieces. I fell a scolding, pretended I was like to be cut to pieces, and made them set down the chair in the Park, while they picked out the bits of glasses : and when I paid them, I quarrelled still, so they dared not grumble, and I came off for my fare : but I was plaguily afraid they would have said, God bless your honour, won't you give us something for our glass ? " Swift was the author of an amusing satire on the same subject, wherein coach and sedan were no better friends than of old. A CONFERENCE BETWEEN SIR HARRY PIERCE'S CHARIOT AND MRS. D. STOPFORD'S CHAIR Chariot "My pretty dear Cuz, tho' I've roved the town o'er, To dispatch in an hour some visits a score ; Though, since first on the wheels, I've been everyday At the 'Change, at a raffling, at church, or a play; And the fops of the town are pleased with the notion Of calling your slave the perpetual motion ; — Though oft at your door I have whined [out] my love As my knight does grin his at your Lady above ; Yet, ne'er before this though I used all my care, I e'er was so happy to meet my dear Chair ; And since we're so near, like birds of a feather. Let's e'en, as they say, set our horses together. Chair ** By your awkward address, you're that thing which should carry, With one footman behind, our lover Sir Harry. By your language, I judge, you think me a wench ; He that makes love to me, must make it in French. Thou that's drawn by two beasts, and carry'st a brute, Canst thou vainly e'er hope, I'll answer thy suit ? Though sometimes you pretend to appear with your six, No regard to their colour, their sexes you mix : G 98 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Then on the grand-paw you'd look very great, With your new-fashion'd glasses, and nasty old seat. Thus a beau I have seen strut with a cock'd hat, And newly rigg'd out, with a dirty cravat. You may think that you make a figure most shining, But it's plain that you have an old cloak for a lining. Are those double-gilt nails ? Where's the lustre of Kerry, To set off the Knight, and to finish the Jerry ? If you hope I'll be kind, you must tell me what's due In George's-lane for you, ere I'll buckle to. Chariot " Why, how now, Doll Diamond, you're very alert ; Is it your French breeding has made you so pert ? Because I was civil, here's a stir with a pox : Who is it that values your or your fox ? Sure 'tis to her honour, he ever should bed His bloody red hand to her bloody red head. You're proud of your gilding ; but I tell you each nail Is only just tinged with a rub at her tail ; And although it may pass for gold on a ninny, Sure we know a Bath shilling soon from a guinea. Nay, her foretop's a cheat ; each morn she does black it. Yet, ere it be night, it's the same with her placket. I'll ne'er be run down any more with your cant ; Your velvet was wore before in a mant. On the back of her mother ; but now 'tis much duller, — The fire she carries hath changed its colour. Those creatures that draw me you never would mind, If you'd but look on your own Pharaoh's lean kine ; They're taken for spectres, they're so meagre and spare, Drawn damnably low by your sorrel mare. We know how your lady was on you befriended ; You're not to be paid for 'till the lawsuit is ended : But her bond it is good, he need not to doubt ; She is two or three years above being out. Could my Knight be advised, he should ne'er spend his vigour On one he can't hope of e'er making bigger." Gay seems to have shared the watermen's disgust at both coach and sedan. " Boxed within the chair, contemn the street And trust their safety to another's feet," INTERLUDE OF THE CHAIR 99 he says of those willing to use the chair. In another place he is comparing the two : — " The gilded chariots while they loll at ease And lazily insure a life's disease j While softer chairs the tawdry load convey To court, to White's, assemblies or the play." Elsewhere he exhorts the pedestrian to assert his rights : — " Let not the chairman, with assuming stride, Press near the wall, and rudely thrust thy side ; The laws have set him bounds ; his servile feet Should ne'er encroach where posts defend the street." By this time, however, many changes in the chairs had taken place. They seem to have been introduced into Paris in 16 17 by M. de Montbrun, though unfortu- nately from whence this gentleman brought them we are nowhere informed. They were called chaises a porteiirs. Possibly English and French chairs were at first quite similar to each other in appearance — square boxes with a pent-house — but in the middle of the cen- tury — in Paris, at any rate, they became far more elegant in form, and began to be ornamented and richly upholstered. Some of them resembled, in shape, the body of the modern hansom-cab. This was particularly the case with a new carriage, introduced about 1668, called the brouette (wheelbarrow), roulette^ or vanaigrette, which was merely a sedan upon two wheels. It was drawn in the usual way by a man, and was an early form of that vehicle which still survives in the East as the jin-rick-shaw. The brouette held but one person, its wheels were large, and its two poles projected some way in front. One Dupin was apparently the only 100 CARRIAGES AND COACHES person to manufacture them, and after his first experi- ments he applied " two elbow-springs beneath the front, and attached them to the axletree by long shackles, the axletree working up and down in a groove beneath the inside-seat." This improvement is of more than ordinary interest In so far as it is the first mention of steel springs to carriages. In the ordinary coaches these steel springs were first applied beneath the bottom of the body. They were probably formed out of a single piece of metal. In the case of the brouette there was the usual opposition — this time from the proprietors of the ordi- nary sedans — but although a temporary prohibition was made, the brouette triumphed, and in 1671 was a com- mon sight in the streets of Paris. It was not very suitable for decoration. As one French writer remarks, it was enough if the machine were solidly constructed. The brouette had windows at the sides and a small support in front of the wheels to allow the carriage to maintain its proper position when not held up by an attendant. The brouette does not seem to have come imme- diately to England, though in the eighteenth century there was a sedan cart, similar in appearance to it, to be seen in London. On the other hand, the ordinary sedans were rapidly gaining in popularity, and main- tained that popularity right through the reigns of the first three Georges. In appearance they became rather more graceful towards the middle of the century, though less so in later days. The public chairs were generally made of black or dark green leather, ornamented with gold Neapolitan Sedan Chair Early Sixteenth Century (At South Kensington) INTERLUDE OF THE CHAIR loi "beading," the frame and roof, which had a double slope, being of wood, as was also the small square window-frame. Private chairs, however, could be as gorgeous as the owner pleased, though in this respect continental chairs far surpassed our own. At Paris are shown two magnificent chairs which belonged to Louis XV. *' These," says Croal, " have glass windows in side and front, through which the sumptuous lining of crimson velvet is discernible. The outside is beautifully painted and gilt, and though now somewhat faded, the splendour of the vehicles can be imagined, even in their decay. The gorgeously attired king within, or it might be the queen or some reigning favourite, would be attended by a gay escort of gentlemen of the court, with a crowd of bearers and lacqueys, not to speak of armed guards, whose liveries probably equalled in grandeur the courtly habits of the greater men who surrounded the royal air. At South Kensington a private English chair of about 1760 is shown, "rather handsomely ornamented in ormolu, the sides being divided into four panels, but without windows. In form," continues Croal, "the chair may be described as ' carriage-bodied,' not being, as the later chairs, square at the bottom. At the two front corners heavy tassels are hung, and through the door in front it can be seen that the interior lining is of figured damask. The bearing rings through which the poles passed are of brass." This, however, cannot compare with an Italian nobleman's large conveyance of the early eighteenth century which shows a profusion of gold filigree work on the roof that calls to mind nothing so strongly as a Buszard wedding-cake. It 102 CARRIAGES AND COACHES belonged to a member of the Grand Ducal family of Tuscany, by whom it was used on baptismal occasions. Here, besides the gilt work on the roof, there is a medallion-painting of figures in antique costume over the door. The walls are painted a pale French grey " with elaborately carved mouldings round the panels, with groups of flowers painted in the middle. The interior is lined with satin corresponding to the paint- ing outside, being in gold and colours upon a pale ground." The chairmen do not seem to have been a particularly agreeable lot of fellows. In London they were gener- ally Irish or Welsh. They were often drunk, often careless, and nearly always uncivil. Says Gay : — " The drunken chairman in the kennel spurns, The glasses shatter, and his charge o'erturns." In Edinburgh, however, where there were ninety chairs in 1738, the chairmen were Highlanders and rather more civil. " An inhabitant of Edinburgh," says Hugh Arnot in his history of that city (1789), " who visits the metropolis can hardly suppress his laughter at seeing the awkward hobble of a street chair in the city of London." We learn from Markland that in 1740 a chair in Edinburgh could be hired for four shillings a day or twenty shillings a week.^ In London, according to George Selwyn, you could be 1 Which was about the same sum that Defoe had to pay in London earlier in the century. " We are carried to these places [the coffee-houses]," he wrote in 1702, "in chairs which are here very cheap — a guinea a week, or a shilling per hour ; and your chair- men serve you for porters, to run on errands, as your gondoliers do at Venice." INTERLUDE OF THE CHAIR 103 carried three miles for a shilling.^ In Edinburgh, again, where chairs were used at a later date than anywhere in England, rules were made for the public convenience in 1740, the most interesting of these being one which forbade a soldier in the service of the city guard to carry a chair at any time. By 1789 their numbers had increased to 238, including fifty privately owned. Scattered mention of them occurs amongst British authors. Steele, in one of his Tatler papers, proposes to levy a tax upon them, and regrets that the sumptuary laws of the old Romans have never been revived. The chairmen, or " slaves of the rich," he says, " take up the whole street, while we Peripatetics are very glad to watch an opportunity to whisk across a passage, very thankful that we are not run over for interrupting the machine, that carries in it a person neither more hand- some, wise, nor valiant, than the meanest of us." Matthew Bramble in Humphrey Clinker is made to draw a wretched picture of the chairs which abounded in Bath at the middle of the century : — " The valetudinarian," he writes, " is carried in a chair, betwixt the heels of a double row of horses, wincing under the curry-combs of grooms and postilions, over and above the hazard of being obstructed or over- turned by the carriages which are continually making their exit or their entrance. I suppose, after some chairmen shall have been maimed, and a few lives lost ^ cf. " With chest begirt by leathern bands, The chairman at his corner stands ; The poles stuck up against the wall Are ready at a moment's call. For customers they're always willing And ready aye to earn a shilling." Echoes of the Street. 104 CARRIAGES AND COACHES by those accidents, the corporation will think in earnest about providing a more safe and commodious passage. ... If, instead of the areas and iron rails, which seem to be of very little use, there had been a corridor with arcades all round, as in Covent Garden, the appearance of the whole would have been more magnificent and striking ; those arcades would have afforded an agree- able covered walk, and sheltered the poor chairmen and their carriages from the rain, which is here almost per- petual. At present the chairs stand soaking in the open street from morning to night, till they become so many boxes of wet leather, for the benefit of the gouty and rheumatic, who are transported in them from place to place. Indeed, this is a shocking inconvenience, that extends over the whole city ; and I am persuaded it produces infinite mischief to the delicate and infirm. Even the close chairs, contrived for the sick, by standing in the open air, have their fringe linings impregnated, like so many sponges, with the moisture of the atmo- sphere." It was to Bath that Princess Amelia was carried in a sedan by eight chairmen from St. James's, in April, 1728. This must easily have b^en the longest, and, so far as the chairmen were concerned, the most wearisome journey ever performed by a chair. John Wilkes mentions in one of his letters to his daughter that he ascended Mont Cenis in a chair *' carried by two men and assisted by four more." " This," he says, " was not a sedan chair, but a small wicker chair with two long poles ; there is no covering of any kind to it." Such open chairs seem to have been very uncommon, and were, I imagine, unknown in England. Some, however, had more glass than others, and their size fluctuated. Fashionable ladies must ^B^^^ '' ^-^r,v"-^^s>Ci;ii<,i^'^>iwii,i,_:'-^'^ ''*'**1s?t11 ■■ i'T;:^*^'*^ r;^ , k MM '' mm ^ f 1 V '1 if SI R 11 1 ^ H^^^^^B'^ 1^ J ■^^s^^^s nHHTHP^TTvHInF^^ ^^^^fo^To -r ^BS^ ' • ^- / '^^"^i " T/)^ Sor/tf/ Pinch " 5v /«?//'/ A^''?)' Sedans in " T/?^ Present Age " Sj L. ?. Boitard (176J) INTERLUDE OF THE CHAIR 105 have found a difficulty in getting into a public chair of the ordinary size at the time of the large hoop petti- coat, and there is a satiric print, dated 1733, which shows a lady thus attired, being hauled out through the opened roof of one with ropes and pulleys. Similarly, when forty or fifty years later the head-dress of the women became so enormous, a ludicrous print appeared showing a patent arrangement whereby the roof of a chair could be raised on rods to as great a height as was required. In general the roof opened upwards, being hinged at the back. This is clearly shown in a print published in 1768, called The Female Orators^ in which a clergyman is stepping out of his chair, and the chairmen very obviously demanding their fare. Another print pub- lished about 1786, called the Social Pinch, shows a very famous chairman, Donald Kennedy, offering his " mull " to Donald Balack, a native of Ross-shire, whom he had just set down. Here the structure of the public chair in use at this date is clearly shown. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, the chair as a mode of conveyance was on the wane. Fenimore Cooper in his Sketches of English Society (1837) was able to write : " Sedan chairs appear to have finally disappeared from St. James' Street. Even in 1826 I saw a stand of them that has since vanished. The chairs may still be used on particular occasions, but were Cecilia now in existence, she would find it difficult to be set down in Mrs. Benfield's entry from a machine so lumbering." Which suggests that the chair had not only degenerated in numbers, but also in appearance. They had become larger and uncouth in Cooper's day. One is reminded of that chair in Pickwick, which io6 CARRIAGES AND COACHES " having been originally built for a gouty gentleman with funded property, would hold Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman at least as comfortably as a modern post- chaise." Yet so late as 1775 the popularity of the chair had been at its highest. It was the old story. With the new century were coming new ideas. The chair slowly and quite naturally was dropping out of existence. In Edinburgh, as I have said, it lingered on for rather a longer time. In 1806 stringent regulations were still required. Those chairs which maintained their stand at night had to have " a light fixed on the fore part of one of the poles." On the occasion of a fire or a mob the chairmen had to hurry to the scene of excitement, and there await the magistrate's orders. They were not allowed to charge more than ninepence a mile, seven-and-six a day, or a guinea and a half a week. Such rates, too, continued to be set out in the Edinburgh Almanac until 1830. After that comes an ominous silence, By that time only the private chair was in use. "Lady Don," says Lord Cockburn in his Memorials^ *' was about the last person (so far as I recollect) in Edinburgh, who kept a private sedan chair. Hers stood in the lobby and was as handsome and comfort- able as silk, velvet, and gilding could make it. And when she wished to use it two well-known respectable chairmen, enveloped in her livery cloaks, were the envy of her [superannuated] brethren. She and Mrs. Rochead both sat in Tron Church ; and well do I remember how I used to form one of the cluster that always took its station to see these beautiful relics emerge from coach and chair." INTERLUDE OF THE CHAIR 107 The time, indeed, had come when the sight of a chair was as much a public entertainment as it had been when Buckingham had been borne through the streets " on men's shoulders." Yet although they so rapidly disappeared off the face of Europe, in Asia they lost little of their popularity, and in many places to-day are the only methods of con- veyance in common use. China, in particular, had long been a land of sedans. John Barrow in his Collection of Authentic, Useful, and Entertaining Voyages and Discoveries, 1765, mentions the fact that at an early date the Chinese *' small covered carriages on two wheels, not unlike in appearance to our funeral hearses, but only about half their length," had been superseded by chairs. To a European, he relates, this was hardly surprising, as the carriage was anything but comfortable, and required you to sit on your haunches at the bottom — " the most uneasy vehicle that can be imagined." " * The Chinese,' records another eighteenth-century traveller, ' occasionally travel on horseback, but their best land conveyance by far is the sedan, a vehicle which cer- tainly exists among them in perfection. Whether viewed with regard to lightness, comfort, or any other quality associated with such mode of carriage, there is nothing so convenient elsewhere. Two bearers place upon their shoulders the poles, which are thin and elastic and in shape something like the shafts of a gig, connected near the ends, and in this manner they proceed forward with a measured step in an almost imperceptible motion, and sometimes with considerable speed. Instead of panels, the sides and back of the chair consist of woollen cloth for the sake of lightness with a covering of oil- cloth against rain. The front is closed with a hanging blind of the same materials in lieu of a door, with a io8 CARRIAGES AND COACHES circular aperture of gauze to see through. . . . Private persons among the Chinese are restricted to two bearers, ordinary magistrates to four, and the viceroys to eight, while the Emperor alone is great enough to require sixteen.' " There is further mention of these Chinese chairs in Oliphant's much later account of Lord Elgin's mission. Lord Elgin himself travelled in a chair of the kind usually reserved for mandarins of the highest rank, which was larger than those in ordinary use and had a fine brass knob on the top. Eight bearers carried it. In processions a hwakeaou or flowered chair was often used. Japan, too, had early had sedans both for travelling and for more purely ceremonial purposes. Light bamboo chairs, they were, called kangoes or norimonSy which were borne by two or more persons. On the introduction of the European coach, however, a kind of brouette, as I have said, was substituted, and in a few years there were hundreds of thousands of these jin-rick-shaws on the streets, not only in Japan, but throughout Asia. At first many of these were grotesquely adorned, but their appearance is too well-known at the present day for need of a lengthy description. Equipped with " every modern convenience" and very well built indeed, they afford a European a delightful sensation on his first ride, even though he may have visions of those earlier days of his youth when he was carried about in a similar way (though at a less speed) in the homely perambulator. Chapter the Fifth SEVENTEENTH-CENTUR T INNOVATIONS " V/e took our coach, two coachmen and four horses, And merrily from London made our courses. We wheel'd the top of th' heavy hill called Holborne (Up which hath been full many a sinful soule borne,) And so along we jolted past St. Gileses, Which place from Brainford six (or neare) seven miles is." Taylor. THE seventeenth century saw great changes in vehicular design. In 1660 the first berlin was made. Steel springs, as we have seen, appeared a few years later in the brouette. About this time, too, a hooded gig or calkhe made its appearance in the streets of Paris, the first of many carriages to be built upon entirely new lines. Glass windows and complete doors were used in the coaches, both public and private, which became smaller, more compact, and certainly more graceful. Improvements were not confined to one country, but proceeded simul- taneously not only in various European countries, but also in South America. Roads, too, were improved, and laws for the regulation of traffic framed with some regularity and effect. John Evelyn in his Diary gives interesting glimpses of such carriages and other vehicles as he saw during his 109 no CARRIAGES AND COACHES several European tours. In Brussels {1641) he was allowed the use of Sir Henry de Vic's coach and six, and travelled luxuriously in it as far as Ghent. " On the way," he notes, " I met with divers little waggons, prettily contrived, and full of peddling merchandize, drawn by mastiff dogs, harnessed completely like so many coach-horses ; in some four, in others six, as in Brussels itself I had observed. In Antwerp I saw, as I remember, four dogs draw five lusty children in a chariot." When dogs were first used for the purpose of traction does not appear, but they are still to be seen in the Netherlands in a like capacity. A few days later, to continue with Evelyn's observations, he was going from Ostend to Dunkirk " by waggon . . . the journey being made all on the sea sands." On his return to England, however, it is to be noticed that he rode post to Canter- bury. In 1643 he was again in Paris, mentioning "the multitude of coaches passing every moment over the bridge," this being, he says, to a new spectator, " an agreeable diversion." In the following year, while standing in the garden of the Tuileries, he saw "so many coaches as one would hardly think could be main- tained in the whole city, going late as it was, towards the course " — the fashionable rendezvous of the day — ■ " the circle being capable of containing a hundred coaches to turn commodiously, and the larger of the plantations for five or six coaches a-breast." The road from Paris to Orleans he describes as "excellent." Coming to Italy, he found Milan, in spite of the narrow- ness of its streets, abounding in rich coaches. In Paris again, two or three years afterwards, the design of a new coach so took his fancy that he determined, like his SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS in friend Mr. Pepys, to possess one for himself. And so on May 29th, 1652, "I went," he writes, "to give orders about a coach to be made against my wife's coming, being my first coach, the pattern whereof I brought out of Paris." This was probably " booted," but differed from the earlier coaches in having a curved roof. The commonest French coach of this time seems to have been the corbillard, a flat-bottomed, half-open, half-close coach, furnished with curtains of cloth or leather in the front part. These were merely tied on to the supports, and would roll up when required. Doors there were none, but there was a " movable rail, over which a leather screen was hung " at the back portion of the carriage, which was about six feet long, and here were the seats. There were also projecting movable step- seats. Possibly Evelyn saw a newer model with a curved bottom and door half-way up, panelled in the lower part, but curtained above. Such a carriage was hung low, and would have swung from side to side, giving such passengers as were " bad sailors " a fit of nausea. The English-designed coaches of this time, though without glass windows, were almost completely enclosed, and, compared with the new chariots, which were just upon making their appearance, of a huge size. In many of them three people could sit abreast, and seven or eight find room for themselves. In 1641 when Charles I passed through London on his return from Scotland, his was the only coach in the royal procession, but seven people, including His Majesty, were driving, apparently in comfort, within it. 112 CARRIAGES AND COACHES The Commonwealth produced no new carriage, although isolated experiments were already being made. Cromwell himself was wont to drive his own coach and six " for recreation-sake " in Hyde Park, then as now a fashionable resort. *' When my Lord Protector's coach," wrote Misson, a Frenchman then on a visit to England, "came into the Park with Colonel Inglebyand my Lord's three daughters, the coaches and horses flocked about them like some miracle. But they galloped (after the mode court-pace now) round and round the Park, and all that great multi- tude hunted them and caught them still at the turn like a hare, and then made a lane with all reverent haste for them, and so after them again, and I never saw the like in my life." Cromwell's desire to play coachman once led to an accident which might have been serious. The particu- lars are given in a letter from the Dutch Ambassador to the States-General, dated October i6th, 1654 : — " His Highness, only accompanied with secretary Thurloe and some few of his gentlemen and servants, went to take the air in Hyde Park, when he caused some dishes of meat to be brought, when he had his dinner ; and afterwards had a mind to drive the coach himself. Having put only the secretary into it," he whipped up " those six grey horses, which the Count of Oldenburgh had presented unto His Highness, who drove pretty handsomely for some time. But at last, provoking these horses too much with the whip, they grew unruly and ran so fast that the postillion could not hold them in, whereby His Highness was flung out of the coach upon the pole. . . . The secretary's ankle was hurt leaping out, and he keeps his chamber." Coach in the time of Charles I (From " Coach and Sedan Pleasantly Disputing "^ Coach in the time of Charles^lII (From Thrupp's '' History of Coaches 'V SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 113 " From this," comments Sir W^alter Gilbey, who quotes the letter, " it is evident that when six horses were used a postilHon rode one of the leaders and con- trolled them ; while the driver managed the wheelers and middle pair. When four horses were driven," he continues, " it was the custom to have two outriders, one to ride at the leaders' heads, and one at the two wheelers'. In town this would be merely display, but on a journey the outriders' horses might replace those of the team in case of accident, or, more frequently, be added to them to help drag the coach over a stretch of bad road." It is just possible that this coach which was over- turned by Cromwell's faulty driving is at present in existence, repaired, of course, and redecorated, and, incidentally, painted by Cipriani, as Mr. Speaker's coach. This undoubtedly belongs to the period, and one writer actually commits himself to the statement that the two are identical. A commoner report assigns the Speaker's coach in the first place to Lenthall, Crom- well's Speaker. Whatever be its history, the coach is a fine example of Jacobean work. It is of carved oak, the body being hung upon leather braces. The work- manship, Mr. Oakley Williams thinks,^ is Flemish. Cipriani's work, added late in the eighteenth century, is still in good preservation. Five people can comfortably sit inside. "The Speaker," says Mr. Williams, "pre- sumably occupied the seat of honour alone. Opposite him sat his Chaplain and the Sergeant-at-Arms. For the accommodation of his other attendants ... a low bench is arranged across the floor of the coach, with ^ In an article in the Pall Mall Magazine for March, 191 2. H 114 CARRIAGES AND COACHES a semicircular space for the legs of its occupants scooped out against either door" — relic, of course, of the boot. " The coach," he continues, after mentioning that the Speaker always has his own arms painted on the side of the body, and is allowed an escort of a single Lifeguardsman, " weighs two tons one hundredweight and several pounds, yet for all its size it so beautifully hung and balanced that an able-bodied man was able with- out undue effort to draw it out for my inspection. Its coach-house is one of the vaults in the inner courtyard of the House of Lords." Both origin and subsequent history of this coach, however, are wrapped in an im- penetrable mystery. Cromwell's mishap naturally gave the Royalist writers an opportunity for satire. Cleveland wrote the follow- ing lines : — " The whip again ; away ! 'tis too absurd That thou should lash with whipcord now, but sword. I'm pleased to fancy how the glad compact Of Hackney cuachmen sneer at the last act. Hark ! how the scoffing concourse hence derives The proverb, 'Needs must go when th' devil drives.' Yonder a whisper cries, ' 'Tis a plain case He turned us out to put himself in place ; But, God-a-mercy, horses once for aye Stood to 't, and turned him out as well as we.' Another, not behind him with his mocks, Cries out, 'Sir, faith, you were in the wrong box.' He did presume to rule because, forsooth. He's been a horse-commander since his youth, But he must know there's a difference in the reins Of horses fed with oats and fed with grains. I wonder at his frolic, for be sure Four hamper'd coach-horses can fling a brewer j But pride will have a fall ; such the world's course is. He [who] can rule three realms can't guide four horses ; SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 1 1 5 See him that trampell'd thousands in their gore ; Dismounted by a party but of four. But we have done with 't, and we may call The driving Jehu, Phaeton in his fall. I wish to God, for these three kingdoms' sake, His neck, and not the whip, had giv'n the crack." • Evelyn met with a similar mishap, but fortunately escaped injury. He, too, was accustomed to ride in Hyde Park, and on one occasion is grumbling that " every coach " there " was made to pay a shilling, and a horse sixpence, by a sordid fellow who had purchased it of the State, as they called it." Such experiments as were being made in this country were in the direction of a safer and swifter vehicle than those in general use. So early as 1625, one Edward Knapp had been granted a patent for " hanging the bodies of carriages on springs of steel." Apparently Knapp was wholly unsuccessful, but forty years later Colonel Blunt, working upon similar lines, produced several carriages which, if not entirely satisfactory in themselves, led the way towards a wider appreciation of the problems in question. If, as seems probable, he was identical with the Blunt or Blount of Wicklemarsh, near Blackheath (afterwards Sir Harry Blount), who had travelled extensively in Turkey and elsewhere, it may be that he had brought back with him several continental curiosities. We hear, indeed, of a French chariot in his possession. In 1657 the Colonel was making ex- periments with a "way- wiser" or " adometer " which exactly " measured the miles . . . showing these by an index as we went on. It had three circles, one pointing to the number of rods, another to the miles, by 10 to 1000, with all the subdivisions of quarters ; very ii6 CARRIAGES AND COACHES pretty," opines Evelyn, " and useful." This seems to have been the first instrument of the kind, and is over- looked by Beckmann in his account of such con- trivances. The Colonel's work was brought to the notice of the newly formed Royal Society, and a com- mittee was formed to investigate it. The first model shown to this committee was of " a chariot with four springs, esteemed by him very easy both to the rider and the horse, and at the same time cheap." The Committee also examined the designs of Dr. Robert Hooke, a distinguished member of the Society, and Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, who " pro- duced the model of a chariot with two wheels and short double springs to be driven by one horse ; the chair of it being so fixed upon two springs that the person sitting just over or rather a little behind the axletree was, when the experiment was made at Colonel Blunt's house, carried with as much ease as one could be in the French chariot without at all burthening the horse. "^ Dr. Hooke showed " two drafts of this model having this circum- stantial difference — one of these was contrived so that the boy sitting on a seat made for him behind the chair and guiding the reins over the top of it, drives the horse. The other by placing the chair behind and the saddle on the horse's back being to be borne up by the shafts, that the boy riding on it and driving the horse should be little or no burden to the horse." The Colonel continued experimenting both with the older coaches and a new light chariot. In 1665 Mr. Pepys was taken to see an improvement of his on a coach. 1 Birch's History of the Royal Society. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 117 " I met my Lord Brouncker, Sir Frederick Murrey, Dean Wilkins, and Mr. Hooke, going by coach to Colonel Blunt's to dinner. . . . No extraordinary dinner, nor any other entertainment good ; but afterwards to the tryal of some experiments about making of coaches easy. And several we tried ; but one did prove mighty easy, not here for me to describe, but the whole body of the coach lies upon one long spring, and we all, one after another, rid in it ; and it is very fine and likely to take." A few months later Pepys saw the new chariot itself. " After dinner comes Colonel Blunt in his new chariot made with springs ; as that was of wicker, where in a while since we rode at his house. And he hath rode, he says, now his journey, many miles in it with one horse, and out-drives any coach, and out-goes any horse, and so easy he says. So for curiosity, I went into it to try it, ^ and up the hill [Shooter's Hill] to the heath [Blackheath], and over the cart ruts, and found it pretty well, but not so easy as he pretends." The Colonel persevered. At the beginning of the next year the Royal Society's committee met again at his house to consider, says Pepys, " of the business of chariots, and to try their new invention, which I saw here my Lord Brouncker ride in : where the coachman sits astride upon a pole over the horse, but do not touch the horse, which is a pretty odde thing ; but it seems it is most easy for the horse, and, as they say, for the man also." Others were also at work upon carriage improvement, and In 1667 ^^^ Royal Society "generally approved" of a chariot Invented by a Dr. Croune. " No particulars of the vehicle are given," says Sir Walter Gilbey, "we are only told that * some fence was proposed to be ii8 CARRIAGES AND COACHES made for the coachman against the kicking of the horse.'" In the same year, Sir William Pen possessed a light chariot in which Pepys drove out one day. This, he says, was " plain, but pretty and more fashionable in shape than any coaches he hath, and yet do not cost him, harness and all, above ^32." All such experiments were undoubtedly in the direc- tion of a light, swift carriage, such as was built about 1660 in Germany by Philip de Chiesa, a Piedmontese, in the service of the Duke of Prussia. Indeed, it is quite possible that Colonel Blunt either possessed, or had seen, one of de Chiesa's carriages, which were none other than the famous and popular berlins} So far Germany had been taking the lead. Her State coaches were the most wonderful in the world, and her coachbuilders were designing lesser coaches for the ordinary folk. But the berlin was the first of these lesser carriages to catch the public fancy, and enjoy more than a local success. Now the herlm differed in the first place 1 Some people have considered that the name was not derived from the city of BcrHn, but from an Italian word bcrllna, " a name given by the Italians to a kind of stage on which criminals are exposed to public ignominy." This seems rather far-fetched. In England it was always thought to have been built first in Berlin, and was a common enough term for a coach early in the eighteenth century. Swift mentions it in his Answer to a Scandalous Poem (1733) : — " And jealous Juno, ever snarling, Is drawn by peacocks in her berlin." "It should be noted," says Croal, "that we find the word differently applied in the earlier years of the century, and in such a way as to cast doubts on the derivations quoted. In some of the last Acts passed by the Scottish Parliaments before the Union, there are references to a kind of ship or boat, called a berline. The royal burghs on the west coast of Scotland were in 1705 ordered to maintain two ' berlines ' to prevent the importation of ' victual ' from Ireland, this importation being forbidden at the time, and two years later an Act was passed to pay the expenses of the ocrhnes. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 119 from previous carriages in having two perches instead of the single pole, " and between these two perches, from the front transom to the hind axle-bed, two strong leather braces were placed, with jacks or small windlasses, to wind them up tighter if they stretched." The bottom of the coach was no longer flat, and these braces of leather allowed the body to play up and down instead of swinging from side to side as before. Here, then, you had an entirely new principle. " In the Imperial mews at Vienna," says Thrupp, " are four coach berlins, which, I think, may belong to this period. They are said to have been built for the Emperor Leopold who reigned at Vienna from 1658 to 1700, and Kink describes this Emperor's carriage as covered with red cloth and as having glass panels ; he also says they were called the Imperial glass coaches. It is possible that the coaches have been a little altered from the time of their construction, but I consider that in these four we have the oldest coaches with solid doors and glasses all round that exist in Europe. Whether they are identical with the Emperor Leopold's wedding- carriages matters much less than the influence the berlin undoubtedly had upon the coachbuilding of that period. It was the means of introducing the double perch, which, although it is not now in fashion, was adopted for very many carriages both in England and abroad, up to 1810. Crane-necks to perches were suggested by the form of the herlin perch ; and as bodies swinging from standard posts suggested the position of the C spring, so bodies resting upon long leather braces suggested the horizontal and elbow springs to which we owe so much. The first herlhi was made as a small vis-a-vis coach — small because it was to be used as a light travelling carriage, and narrow because it was to hang between the two perches, and was only needed to carry two persons 120 CARRIAGES AND COACHES inside. It was such an improvement in lightness and appearance upon the cumbersome coaches that carried eight persons, that it at once found favour, and was imitated in Paris and still more in London." These early berlins were not nearly so gorgeous as the heavier coaches which they gradually supplanted. Red cloth and black nails had taken the place of the gilt ornamentation and crimson hangings of the previous generation.^ Only on festivals, we learn, the black harness " was ornamented with silk fringe." The coaches used by the Emperor himself had leather traces, but the ladies of his suite had to be content with carriages the traces of which were made of rope. The glass windows which were such a conspicuous feature of the berlins^ were also used in the larger coaches, finally, as I have said, eliminating the boot. Mr. Charles Harper thinks that the first English coach to possess them belonged in 1661 to the Duke of York. At first these windows seem to have caused trouble, and there is the ludicrous incident mentioned by Pepys, of my Lady Peterborough who " being in her glass- coach with the glass up and seeing a lady pass by in a coach whom she would salute, the glass was so clear that she thought it had been open, and so ran her head through the glass ! " Lady Ashly did not like the new invention, because, as she said, the windows were for ever flying open while the coach was running over a bad 1 A point of minor interest may here be noticed. When leather was first used for the covering of the coach quarters, the heads of the nails showed. But about 1660, "these nail-heads were covered with a strip of metal made to imitate a row of beads ; from this practice arose the name of 'beading' which has been retained, although beading is now made in a continuous, level piece, either rounded or angular." Thrtipp. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 121 piece of road. Lady Peterborough's misfortune was tribute indeed to the maker ! In this matter of the glass it would seem that Spain had taken the lead, and it is quite possible that Spain invented the first two-seated chariots. In 1631, thirty years before the first berliii was made, an Infanta of Spain is reported to have traversed Carinthia " in a glass- carriage in which no more than two persons could sit." What this was like we do not know. It may have had rude springs, and been built from the common coach models to a smaller measurement ; it was certainly bootless, and framed glass or mica took the place of curtains. In France the first coaches to have glass windows, according to M. Roubo, created something of a Court scandal in the time of Louis XIII. The glass, he says, was first used in the upper panels of the doors, but was soon extended to the whole of the upper half of the sides and front of the body, so making of the carriage literally a glass-coach. You may learn more of the English seventeenth- century carriages from Pepys than from any other writer ; nor is this a matter for wonder. Pepys had a knack of knowing just exactly what posterity would desire to know. From his Diary, we learn incidentally that the watermen were still endeavouring to regain their lost prestige and custom, but by this time coaches had enormously increased in number — in 1662 there were nearly 2500 hackneys in London alone — and thenceforth they are hardly heard of. To be any one, moreover, you had to have your private coach. Doctors, for instance, found it very well worth their while to keep a coach, though, as Sir Thomas Browne 122 CARRIAGES AND COACHES told his son, they were certainly " more for state than for businesse." On the other hand those who were well able to keep a private carriage occasionally pre- ferred the use of a hackney, and sometimes at times when they had no business to do so. Mr. Pepys, with clear ideas upon the dignity and responsibilities of rank, was indignant at any such foolery. He was told, he recalls in one place, " of the ridiculous humour of our King and Knights of the Garter the other day, who, whereas heretofore their robes were only to be worn during their ceremonies and service, these, as proud of their coats, did wear them all day till night, and then rode into the Park with them on. Nay, and he tells us he did see my Lord Oxford and Duke of Monmouth in a hackney-coach with two footmen in the Park, with their robes on ; which is a most scandalous thing, so as all gravity may be said to be lost amongst us." The private coach, too, was the last luxury to be given up after financial embarrassment. So we have Lady Flippant, in Wycherley's Love in a Wood^ saying, *' Ah, Mrs. Joyner, nothing grieves me like the putting down my coach ! For the fine clothes, the fine lodg- ings, — let 'em go ; for a lodging is as unnecessary a thing to a widow that has a coach, as a hat to a man that has a good peruke. For, as you see about town, she is most probably at home in her coach :— she eats, and drinks, and sleeps in her coach ; and for her visits, she receives them in the playhouse." No lady's virtue, according to this cynical dramatist, was proof against a coach and six. At the time of the introduction of the light, two- seated chariots, ordinary private coaches were also SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 123 changing In shape. In Charles I's reign they had been both very long and very wide ; in his son's time they became much slenderer and less unwieldy. Alterations in this direction were possibly suggested by the ubiqui- tous and most convenient sedans, and, indeed, there is an allusion to this change of shape in Sir William Davenant's First Day's EnUrtainment at Rutland House, m which, during a dialogue between a Russian and a Londoner, the foreigner says : " I have now left your houses, and am passing through your streets ; but not in a coach, for they are uneasily hung, and so narrow that I took them for sedans upon wheels." Stage-coaches, however, remained just as huge and just as gorgeous as ever. They were built, more par- ticularly in Italy, in the old fashion — unenclosed and curtained. Count Gozzadini describes a State coach built in 1629 for the marriage of Duke Edward Farnese with the Lady Margaret of Tuscany, and as we shall see in a moment, this differed only in the details of its ornamentation from the State coach in which Lord Castlemaine made his public entry into Rome sixty years later. The body of the Farnese coach, says Gozzadini, " was lined with crimson velvet and gold thread, and the woodwork covered with silver plates, chased and embossed and perforated, in half relief. It could carry eight persons, four on the seats attached to the doors, and four in the back and front. The roof was supported by eight silver columns, on the roof were eight silver vases, and unicorns' heads and lilies in full relief pro- jected from the roof and ends of the body here and there. The roof was composed of twenty sticks, con- 124 CARRIAGES AND COACHES verging from the edge to the centre, which was crowned with a great rose with silver leaves on the outside, and inside by the armorial bearings of the Princes of Tuscany and Farnese held up by cupids. The curtains of the sides and back of the coach were of crimson velvet, embroidered with silver lilies with gold leaves. At the back and front of the coach-carriage were statues of unicorns, surrounded by cupids and wreathed with lilies, grouped round the standards from which the body was suspended ; on the tops of the standards were silver vases, with festoons of fruit, and wraught in silver. In the front were also statues of Justice and Mercy, supporting the coachman's seat. The braces suspending the body were of leather, covered with crimson velvet ; the wheels and pole were plated with polished silver. The whole was drawn by six horses, with harness and trappings covered with velvet, em- broidered with gold and silver thread, and with silver buckles. It is said that twenty-five excellent silver- smiths worked at this coach for two years, and used up 25,000 ounces of silver ; and that the work was super- intended by two master coachbuilders, one from Parma and the other from Piacenza." Lord Castlemaine's pro- cession into Rome contained three hundred and thirty coaches, of which thirteen were his own property ; and of these two were State coaches. These likewise were not properly enclosed, and had no glass. " They were hung," says Thrupp, " inside and out, with beautifully embroidered cloths, the one coach with crimson, the other with azure-blue velvet, and gold and silver work. The roofs were adorned with scroll work and vases gilt ; under the roof were curtains of silver SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 125 fringes, and the ambassador's armorial bearings. The carriage of the principal coach was adorned in front with two large Tritons, of carved wood, gilt all over, that supported a cushion for the coachman between them, and from their shoulders the braces depended. The footboard was formed by a conch shell, between two dolphins. In the rear of the coach were two more Tritons, supporting not only the leather braces of the coach, but two other statues of Neptune and Cybele, who in turn held a royal crown. Below Neptune and Cybele, and projecting backwards, were a lion and a unicorn, and several cupids and wreaths of flowers. The wheels had moulded rims, and the spokes were hidden by curving foliage carving. The second coach had plainer wheels and fewer statues about it." They may have been magnificent, but they were cer- tainly not very beautiful. Much the same, too, might be said of those coaches in which foreign ambassadors made their public entry into London. In 1660 Evelyn saw the Prince de Ligne, Ambassador-Extraordinary from Spain, make a splendid entry with seventeen coaches, and a month later Pepys was watching " the Duke de Soissons go from his audience with a very great deal of state : his own coach all red velvet covered with gold lace, and drawn by six barbes, and attended by twenty pages very rich in cloths." In this year, 1660, there was a proclamation against the excessive number of hackney-coaches, and two years later Commissioners were appointed " for reforming the buildings, ways, streets and incumbrances, and regu- lating the hackney-coaches in the city of London." Of this body Evelyn was sworn a member in May, 1662. Pepys, however, never found any difficulty in obtaining 126 CARRIAGES AND COACHES one when he desired, and, indeed, of late years, pressure of business had made a hackney-coach an almost daily necessity. Finally, he found it cheaper to possess one of his own, and the story of this coach is particularly interesting, and may be told in some detail. Long ago, Mr. Pepys had dreamt of owning a private coach. "Talking long in bed with my wife," he writes on March 2nd, 1 66 1-2, "about our frugal life for the time to come, proposing to her what I could and would do, if I were worth ;^2ooo, that is, be a knight, and keep my coach, which pleased her." Times were bad, however, and although Pepys enjoyed many a ride in a friend's coach and witnessed Colonel Blunt's experi- ments, the great idea did not mature. But one of his particular friends, Thomas Povey, M.P., who had been a colleague of his on the Tangier committee, himself the owner of at least one coach, seems to have kept Pepys's ambitions astir. This was more especially the case in 1665, at which time Mr. Povey had purchased one of the new and already fashionable chariots. This excited Pepys's admiration. " Comes Mr. Povey's coach," he records, "and so rode most nobly, in his most pretty and best-contrived chariot in the world, with many new contrivances, his never having till now, within a day or two, been yet finished." Povey was something of an inventor himself. Evelyn calls him a " nice contriver of all elegancies, and most formal." The necessary money was apparently not forthcoming for a year or two, but in April, 1667, Pepys had a mind " to buy enough ground to build a coach-house and stable ; for," says he, " I have had it much in my thoughts lately that it is not too much for me now, in SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 127 degree or cost, to keep a coach, but contrarily, that I am almost ashamed to be seen In a hackney." Accord- ingly, Mr. Commander, his lawyer, was bidden to look for a suitable piece of ground. The idea had now taken definite shape, and Pepys was committed. " I find it necessary," he says, " for me, both in respect of honour and the profit of it also, my expence In Hackney coaches being now so great, to keep a coach, and there- fore will do it." The next entry shows the first of his disappointments : — " Mr. Commander tells me, after all, that I cannot have a lease of the ground for my coach-house and stable, till a lawsuit be ended. I am a little sorry, because I am pretty full In my mind of keeping a coach ; but yet," he adds philosophically — the date was June 4th, 1667 — "when I think of it again, the Dutch and French both at sea, and we poor, and still out of order, I know not yet what turns there may be." So the summer passed, and " most of our discourse," he admits, " Is about our keeping a coach the next year, which pleases my wife mightily ; and If I continue as able as now. It will save me money." At the beginning of the new year Will Griffin was ordered to make fresh inquiries about the most necessary coach-house, but nothing seems to have been done until the autumn. Then Pepys, more or less It would seem on the spur of the moment, chose a coach for himself, and Immediately disliked It. No one seems to have given him the same advice. Some ladies, for instance, Mrs. Pepys amongst them, preferred the large old-fashioned coaches. Others wanted the latest thing from Paris. Says Mrs. Flirt In The Gentleman Dancing-Master : " But take notice, I will 128 CARRIAGES AND COACHES have no little, dirty, second-hand chariot^ new furnished, but a large, sociable, well-painted coach ; nor will I keep it till it be as well-known as myself, and it comes to be called Flirt-coach." Her friend, Monsieur Paris, shrugs his shoulders. " 'Tis very well," says he, " you must have your great, gilt, fine painted coach. I'm sure they are grown so common already amongst you that ladies of quality begin to take up with hackneys again." It was felt, no doubt, that fashion in carriages as in every- thing else would speedily change. Mr. Pepys must have found considerable difficulty in making up his mind. The new chariots were small, light and, so far as he knew, most fashionable ; but possibly they were not quite to his taste, and equally possibly they might not be fashionable in ten years' time. Also they perhaps lacked the solid dignity of the older carriages, and were less likely to attract public attention — two important considerations. In the end, however, he seems to have chosen a large coach of the old style. Mr. Povey saw it, and poor Pepys knew at once that a dreadful mistake had been made. " He and I . . . talk of my coach," runs the Diary for 30th October, " and I got him to go and see it, where he finds most infinite fault with it, both as to being out of fashion and heavy, with so good reason, that I am mightily glad of his having corrected me in it ; and so I do resolve to have one of his build, and with his advice, both in coach and horses, he being the fittest man in the world for it." Accordingly on the following Sunday, " Mr. Povey sent his coach for my wife and I to see, which we liked mightily, and will endeavour to have him get us just SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 129 such another." Mr. Povey thought that his own coach- maker had a replica for sale. Pepys thereupon went down into the neighbourhood of Lincoln's Inn Fields, found the man, but learnt to his disgust that the coach had been sold that very morning. At the end of the week, however, in company with his friend, he " spent the afternoon going up and down the coachmakers in Cow Lane, and did see several, and last did pitch upon a little chariott, whose body was framed, but not covered, at the widow's, that made Mr, Lowther's fine coach ; and we are mightily pleased with it, it being light, and will be very genteel and sober ; to be covered with leather, but yet will hold four. Being much satisfied with this, I carried him to White Hall. Home, where I give my wife a good account of the day's work." Having bought the coach, it was necessary to com- plete the arrangements about a coach-house, and in the same week Pepys fared forth again for the purpose. " This afternoon I did go out towards Sir D. Gauden's, thinking to have bespoke a place for my coach and horses, when I have them, at the Victualling Office ; but find the way so bad and long that I returned, and looked up and down for places elsewhere, in an inne, which I hope to get with more convenience than there." This not proving satisfactory. Sir Richard Ford was persuaded to lend his own coach-yard. Then follow in quick succession the other entries : — " 2Sth November, 1668. — All the morning at the Office, where, while I was sitting, one comes and tells me that my coach is come. So I was forced to go out, and to Sir Richard Ford's, where I spoke to him, and he is very willing to have it brought I 130 CARRIAGES AND COACHES in, and stand there : and so I ordered it, to my great content, it being mighty pretty, only the horses do not please me, and, therefore, resolve to have better." " i()th November. — This morning my coachman's clothes come home and I like the livery mightily. . . . Sir W. Warren . . . tells me, as soon as he saw my coach yesterday, he wished that the owner might not contract envy by it ; but I told him it was now manifestly for my profit to keep a coach, and that, after employments like mine for eight years, it were hard if I could not be thought to be justly able to do that." ^ "30/i?' November. — My wife after dinner, went abroad the first time in her coach, calling on Roger Pepys, and visiting Mrs. Creed, and my cozen Turner. Thus ended this month, with very good intent, but most expenseful to my purse on things of pleasure, having furnished my wife's closet and the best chamber, and a coach and horses, that ever I knew in the world ; and I am put into the greatest condition of outward state that ever I was in, or hoped ever to be, or desired ; and this at a time when we do daily expect great changes in this office ; and by all reports we must, all of us, turn out." " 2nd December. — Abroad with my wife, the first time that ever I rode in my own coach, which do make my heart rejoice, and praise God, and pray him to bless it to me and continue it." " 2)rd December. — . . . and so home, it being mighty pleasure to go alone with my poor wife, in a coach of our own, to a play, and makes us appear mighty great, I think, in the world ; at least, greater than ever I could, or my friends for me, have once expected ; or, I think, than ever any of my family ever yet lived, in my memory, but my cozen Pepys in Salisbury Court." 1 See below, p. 133. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 131 " 4//? December. — I carried my wife ... to Smith- field, where they sit in the coach, while Mr. Pickering, who meets me at Smithfield and I, and W. Hewer and a friend of his, a jockey did go about to see several pairs of horses, for my coach ; but it was late, and we agreed on none, but left it to another time : but here 1 do see instances of a piece of craft and cunning that I never dreamed of, concerning the buying and choosing of horses." There were plenty of horses to be had, it seems, but either Mr. Pepys did not like them or he was afraid of being cheated. " Up and down," he is recording a week or so later, " all the afternoon about horses, and did see the knaveries and tricks of jockeys. At last, however, we concluded upon giving ^50 for a fine pair of black horses we saw this day se'nnight ; and so set Mr, Pickering down near his house, whom I am much be- holden to, for his care herein, and he hath admired skill, I perceive, in this business, and so home." So the horses were changed, and for a while Mr. Pepys was obliged to revert to the despised hackney, his "coachman being this day about breaking of my horses to the coach, they having never yet drawn." Towards the end of the month the new horses were ready, and their master made his first ride behind them on a visit to the Temple, though later in the day he was again using the old pair, " not daring yet to use the others too much, but only to enter them." Then, before the new year, came the first mishap. " Up, and vexed a little to be forced to pay 40s. for a glass of my coach, which was broke the other day, nobody knows how, within the door, while it was down; but I do doubt that I did break it myself with my knees." 132 CARRIAGES AND COACHES At the beginning of February another misfortune is recorded : — "Just at Holborn Circuit the bolt broke, that holds the fore-wheels to the perch, and so the horses went away with them, and left the coachman and us ; but being near our coachmaker's and we staying in a little ironmonger's shop, we were presently supplied with another." Accidents of this kind were continually happening. Glasses smashed, bolts broke, and, what seems in- credible, doors were lost! Even so late as 17 lo, a reward of 30s. was offered for a lost door. " Lost," runs this remarkable advertisement, " the side door of a Chariot, painted Coffee Colour, with a Round Cipher in the Pannel, Lin'd with White Cloath embos'd with Red, having a Glass in one Frame, and White Canvas in another, with Red Strings to the Frames." To return to Pepys. In a month or two another matter connected with his coach was occupying his attention. There were some people who did not think that a man in the comparatively humble position of Secretary to the Admiralty had any right to possess a coach, even though, in its owner's estimation, it might be "genteel and sober." "To the Park," he is recording in April, "my wife and I ; and here Sir W. Coventry did first see me and my wife in a coach of our own ; and so did also this night the Duke of York, who did eye my wife mightily. But I begin to doubt that my being so much seen in my own coach at this time, may be observed to my preju- dice, but I must venture it now." This was no idle fear, for in a while there was printed an ill-written and scurrilous pamphlet called Plane Truth, SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 133 or Closet Discorse betwixt Pepys and Hewer, in which the following passage occurs : — " There is one thing more you must be mightily sorry for with all speed. Your presumption in your coach in which you daily ride as if you had been son and heir to the great Emperor Neptune, or as if you had been in- fallibly to have succeeded him in his government of the Ocean, all which was presumption in the highest degree. First, you had upon the forepart of your chariot, tem- pestuous waves and wrecks of ships ; on your left hand, forts and great guns, and ships a fighting; on your right hand was a fair harbour and galleys riding, with their flags and pennants spread, kindly saluting each other, just like P[epys] and H[ewer — his chief clerk]." How far Pepys's carriage was decorated is not known, though this description does not tally in the least with Pepys's own. In any case, he took no notice of such attacks, and so far from making his coach less con- spicuous, arranged to have it newly painted and var- nished. " i(^th April, 1669. — After dinner out again, and, calling about my coach, which was at the coachmaker's, and hath been there for these two or three days, to be new painted, and the window-frames gilt against next May-day, went on with my hackney to White Hall." A few days later he gave orders for some " new son of varnish " to be used on the standards at a cost of forty shillings, this being in his view very cheap. Indeed, "the doing of the biggest coach all over," he learnt, "comes not above ;^6." On his next visit to the coachmaker, he was surprised to find several great ladies " sitting in the body of a coach that must be ended to- morrow . . . eating of bread and butter and drinking 134 CARRIAGES AND COACHES ale." His own coach had been silvered over, " but no varnish yet laid on, so I put it in a way of doing." A few hours later he called back again, " and there vexed to see nothing yet done to my coach, at three in the afternoon ; but I set it in doing, and stood by till eight at night, and saw the painter varnish it which is pretty to see how every doing it over do make it more and more yellow : and it dries as fast in the sun as it can be laid on almost ; and most coaches are, now-a-days, done so, and it is very pretty when laid on well, and not too pale, as some are, even to show the silver. Here I did make the workmen drink, and saw my coach cleaned and oyled." And so eager was he to have it without delay that his coachman and horses were sent to fetch it that very evening, and on the following gala day, May ist, " we went alone through the town with our new liveries of serge, and the horses' manes and tails tied with red ribbons, and the standards gilt with varnish, and all clean, and green reines, the people did mightily look upon us ; and, the truth is, I did not see any coach more pretty, though more gay, than ours all the day. But we set out, out of humour — I because Betty, whom I expected, was not come to go with us ; and my wife that I would sit on the same seat with her, which she likes not, being so fine : and she then expected me to meet Sheres, which we did in Pell Mell, and against my will, I was forced to take him into the coach, but was sullen all day almost, and little complaisant ; the day being unpleasing, though the Park full of coaches, but dusty and windy, and cold, and now and then a little dribbling of rain ; and what made it worse, there were so many hackney-coaches as spoiled the sight of the gentlemen's ; and so we had little pleasure." SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 135 Henceforth Mr. Pepys, in spite of sundry warnings from his friend Mr. Povey and others, continued to use his coach, and although perhaps as he grew older, his coach was less brilliantly adorned, there seems no reason to suppose that he ever regretted its purchase. Though it is not my intention to speak in any detail of public conveyances, a word must be said here of the stage-coaches,"' which made their appearance on English roads in 1640. These were large coaches, leather- curtained at first — glass does not seem to have been used until 1680 — and capable of seating six or eight passengers. Their chief feature was the huge basket strapped to the back. " There is of late," says Chamberlayne in his well- known Present State of Great Britain (1649), "such an admirable commodiousness both for men and women, to travel from London to the principal towns in the country, that the like hath not been known in the world; and that is by stage-coaches, wherein one may be trans- ported to any place sheltered from foul weather and foul ways, free from endangering of one's health and one's body by hard jogging or over-violent motion on horseback ; and this not only at the low price of about a shilling for every five miles, but with such velocity and speed in an hour as the foreign post can make but in one day." Of course, there was opposition to these public coaches. In 1662, when there was not a round dozen of them, one writer was already exhorting their extinc- tion on the ground that simple country gentlemen and ^ The reader is referred for the fullest information on the subject of these stage-coaches to Mr. Charles G. Harper's Siage-Coach and Mail in Days of Tore. 2 vols. London, 1903. 136 CARRIAGES AND COACHES their simple country wives could now come to London without due occasion, and there learn all the vice and luxury that were rampant. So in 1673, ^^ ^ singular production called The Grand Concern of England^ amongst the many proposals set forth for the country's good, was one " that the Multitude of Stage Coaches and Caravans be suppressed." One or two pamphlets of no particular interest appeared, both for and against these coaches, but it may be sufficient here to observe that they steadily increased in numbers and maintained their existence until the mail-coaches finally superseded them. One other public carriage of this time also deserves mention. This was the carosse a cinq joz/j, which appeared in the streets of Paris in 1662. The history of this primitive omnibus is well told by Mr. Henry Charles Moore.^ " The leading spirits in this enterprise were the Due de Rouanes, Governor of Poitou, the Marquis de Sourches, Grand Prevot, the Marquis de Crenan, Grand Cup-bearer, and Blaise Pascal, the author of Letlres Provinciales. The idea was Pascal's, but not being sufficiently wealthy to carry it out unaided, he laid the matter before his friend the Due de Rouanes, who suggested that a company should be formed to start the vehicles. Pascal consented to this being done, and the Due set to work at once to prevail upon members of the aristocracy to take shares in the venture." After obtaining a royal decree, " seven vehicles to carry eight passengers each, all inside, were built, and on March i8th, 1662, they began running. The first one was timed to start at seven o'clock in the morning, but an hour or two earlier a huge crowd had assembled to witness the ^ Omnibuses and Cabs, London, 1902. CO «v. ^^" SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 137 inauguration ceremony, which was performed by two Commissaires of the Chdtelet, attired in their official robes. Accompanying them were four guards of the Grand Prevot, tv/enty men of the City Archers, and a troop of cavalry. The procession, on arriving at the line of route, divided into two parts, one Commissaire and half of the attendants proceeded to the Luxem- bourg, and the others to the Porte St. Antoine. At the latter place three of the twopenny-halfpenny coaches were stationed, the other four being at the Luxembourg. Each Commissaire then made a speech, in which he pointed out the boon that carosses a cinq sous would be to the public, and laid great stress on the fact that they would start punctually at certain times whether full or empty. Moreover, he warned the people that the king was determined to punish severely any person who interfered with the coaches, their drivers, conductors, or passengers. The public was also warned that any person starting similar vehicles without permission would be fined 3000 francs, and his horses and coaches confiscated. *'At the conclusion of his address, the Commissaire commanded the coachmen to advance, and. after giving them a few words of advice and caution, presented each one with a long blue coat, with the City arms em- broidered on the front in brilliant colours. Having donned their livery, the drivers returned to their vehicles and climbed up to their seats. Then the command to start was given, and the two vehicles drove off amidst a scene of tremendous enthusiasm. The first coach each way carried no passengers — a very unbusinesslike arrange- ment — the conductor sitting inside in solitary state. But the next two, which v/ere sent off a quarter of an hour after the first, started work in earnest, and it need scarcely be said that there were no lack of passengers. The difficulty experienced was in preventing people from crowding in after the eight seats were occupied. At the 138 CARRIAGES AND COACHES beginning of every journey the struggle to get into the coach was repeated, and many charming costumes were ruined in the crush. Paris, in short, went mad over its carosses d cinq sous, and the excitement soon spread to the suburbs, sending their inhabitants flocking to the city to see the new vehicles. But very few of the visitors managed to obtain a ride, for day by day the rush for seats became greater. The king himself had a ride in one coach, and the aristocracy and wealthy classes hastened to follow his example, struggling with their poorer brethren to obtain a seat. Many persons who possessed private coaches daily drove to the starting- point, and yet failed to get a drive in one for a week or two. " Four other routes were opened in less than four months, but at last the fashionable craze came to an end, and as soon as the upper classes ceased to patronise the new coaches the middle and lower classes found that it was cheaper to walk than to ride. The result was that Pascal, who died only five months after the coaches began running, lived long enough to see the vehicles travelling to and fro, half, and sometimes quite, empty. " For many months after Pascal's death the coaches lingered on, but every week found them less patronised, and eventually they were discontinued. They had never been of any real utility, and were regarded by the public much in the same light as we regard a switchback railway." And, indeed, it was a century and a half before the next omnibus was tried. So then, at the middle of the century, when heavy and slow stage-coaches were making their appearance on the English country roads, and the unsuccessful carosse a cinq sous was being tried in the streets of Paris, SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 139 the success of the berliiij the brouette^ and other chariots, was in process of remodelling men's ideas upon the most feasible carriage for town use. The older coaches, as I have said, were still retained for particular occasions, and, indeed, continued to be built with more ornamentation than ever before. The very spokes of the wheels were decorated, paintings appeared on the panels, and every inch of the coach made as brilliant as possible. France in particular possessed carriages of the most gorgeous possible description. These were not only entirely gilded over, but in some cases actually bejewelled. The richest stuffs lined their interiors, and masters painted their panels. Immense sums were spent. There is preserved at Toulouse a carriage of this date which shows most of these features. The interior " is, or rather was, lined with white brocade embroidered with a diaper of pink roses, the roof being lined with the same, while its angles are hidden by little smiling cupids gilded from top to toe. The surface of the panels is, or rather was, a piece of opaque white, exceedingly well varnished, and edged with a thick moulding of pink roses ; the foliage, instead of being green, was highly gilded and burnished." But the ever-increasing traffic rendered necessary a much smaller vehicle than these monstrosities for general use, and this led, somewhere about 1670, to the introduction of the gig. This was a French inven- tion, which, while no doubt the logical outcome of the brouette, bore resemblance to the old Roman cisium, and led ultimately to the cabriolets, once so popular both in France and England. Certain experiments tending towards a gig had been made earlier in the century 140 CARRIAGES AND COACHES with a chair fixed to a small cart. The first successful gig was a slender, two-wheeled contrivance, " the body- little more than a shell," says Thrupp, provided with a hood "composed of three iron hoop-sticks joined in the middle to fall upwards." It was the prototype of the caleche in France, the carriole of Norway, the calesso of Naples, and the volante of Cuba. Gozzadini describes one of them as "an affair with a curved seat fixed on two long bending shafts, placed in front on the back of the horse and behind upon the two wheels." They were introduced into Florence, he says, in 1672, and " so increased in numbers that in a few years there were nearly a thousand in the city." An early gig of this kind is preserved at South Kensington. It is a forlorn- looking vehicle. The body is curved, but there is no hood. The seat is absurdly small and " beneath the shafts are two long straps of leather and a windlass to tighten them — this apparatus was, no doubt, to regu- late the spring of the vehicle to the road travelled over." The gig speedily underwent several minor changes of form. In France it was known as caleche'^ or chaise^ in England, as calash, calesh, or chaise, in America as shay. Unfortunately there is small mention of them in con- 1 It was over a caleche presented by the Chevalier de Grammont to Charles II, that the famous quarrel took place between Lady Castle- maine and Miss Stewart, afterwards the Duchess of Richmond. The ladies had been complaining that coaches with glass windows, but lately introduced, did not allow a sufficiently free display of their charms, whence followed the gift of a French caleche which cost two thousand livres. When the queen drove out in it, both the ladies agreed with de Grammont that it afforded far better opportunities than a coach for showing off their figures, and both endeavoured to get the first loan of it. In the fierce quarrel that followed Miss Stewart came off the con- queror. SEVENTEENTH- CENTURY INNOVATIONS 141 temporary writings, and one is left to suppose that for some time they did not, except in certain cities, prove serious rivals to the herlins and other four-wheeled chariots. It may be that the berlin itself was taken as a model from which these lighter carriages were evolved. You had first the big double berlins for four people, then you had a vis-d-vis for two or more persons facing each other. Later the front part of the carriage would be cut away for the sake of lightness. When not covered such a vehicle as this seems to have been known as a berlmgot. Two could travel in these berlin- gots sitting side by side, " while a third person might travel uncomfortably in front on a kind of movable seat, which was not much patronised ; for it was not only dangerous, but what was much worse in the eyes of the grand court gentlemen who used them — ridicu- lous." There was also evolved a smaller and narrower berlin with the front cut away and capable of holding only one passenger, called the desobligeafite. The bodies of the ordinary chaises, which seated one or two people, seem to have differed from those of the older berlins in being placed partly below the frame. There were no side doors, but one at the back which opened horizon- tally. When and where all such changes were made, however, it is impossible to say. The accounts, such as they are, are often contradictory, and the same names used to describe what are obviously not identical car- riages. But the two-wheeled gig having appeared there was nothing to prevent improvements of every con- ceivable sort or shape, and innumerable hybrid carriages appeared, some of which are only known by name. There is mention of a truly remarkable calash which 142 CARRIAGES AND COACHES was tried in Dublin in 1685. Exactly who the inventor was is not known, but Sir Richard Bulkeley interested himself in the experiments, and read a paper on his carriage before the Royal Society. Evelyn was one of those who were present on this occasion. " Sir Richard Bulkeley," he says, " described to us a model of a chariot he had invented which it was not possible to overthrow in whatever uneven way it was drawn, giving us a wonderful relation of what it had performed in that kind, for ease, expedition, and safety ; there were some inconveniences yet to be remedied — it would not contain more than one person ; was ready to take fire every few miles ; and being placed and playing on no fewer than ten rollers, it made a most prodigious noise, almost intolerable." It is to be deeply regretted that there is no print of this remarkable carriage, but further details may be found in a letter, dated May 5th, 1685, from Sir Richard Bulkeley himself. " Sir William Petty," he writes, " Mr. Molyneux, and I have spent this day in making experiments with a new invented calesh, along with the inventor thereof ; 'tis he that was in London when I was there, but he never made any of these caleshes there, for his inven- tion is much improv'd since he came from thence : it is in all points different from any machine I have ever seen : it goes on two wheels, carries one person, and is light enough. As for its performance, though it hangs not on braces, yet it is easier than the common coach, both in the highway, in ploughed fields, cross the ridges, directly and obliquely. A common coach will overturn, if one wheel go on a superficies a foot and a half higher than that of the other; but this will admit of the difference of three feet and a half in height of •-1 CO O * (Si SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 143 the superficies, without danger of overturning. We chose all the irregular banks, the sides of ditches to run over ; and I have this day seen it, at five several times, turn over and over ; that is, the wheels so over- turned as that their spokes laid parallel to the horizon, so that one wheel laid flat over the head of him that rode in the Calesh, and the other wheel flat under him ; so much I all but once overturned. But what I have mentioned was another ^urn more, sj that the wheels were again in statu quo^ and the horse not in the least disordered : if it should be unruly, with the help of one pin, you disengage him from the Calesh without any inconvenience. I myself was once overturned, and knew it not, till I looked up, and saw the wheel flat over my head ; and, if a man went with his eyes shut, he would imagine himself in the most smooth way, though, at the same time, there were three feet differ- ence in the heights of the ground of each wheel. In fine, we have made so many, and so various experiments, and are so well satisfied of the usefulness of the inven- tion, that we each of us have bespoke one ; they are not (plain) above six or eight pounds a-piece." Why the nobility, gentry, and worthy burgesses of England, Scotland, and Ireland did not go and do like- wise, history hides from us. There is no further mention of Sir Richard's truly remarkable carriage, and one is left to imagine that some of the Irish roads were too bad even for its freakish agility. On the other hand, they were probably superior to the Scottish roads of the time, even those in the more civilised southern districts. " It is recorded," says Croal, "that in 1678 " — the year after the founding of the Coach and Coach-Harness Makers' Company in London — "the difficulties in the way of rapid com- 144 CARRIAGES AND COACHES munication were such that an agreement was made to run a coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow, a distance of forty-four miles, which was to be drawn by six horses, and to perform the journey to Glasgow and back in six days ! " Cross-country travelling, indeed, was very bad, and the rough tracks over which the heavy stage-coaches rumbled along would have proved too much for the lighter chariots and gigs which were so popular in town. I may conclude this chapter by quoting an amusing description of such cross-country travelling at the end of the century, taken from Sir John Vanbrugh's Provoked Husband. A family is going in its private coach from Yorkshire to London : — > Lord Tozvnley. Mr. Moody, your servant ; I am glad to see you in London. I hope all the family is well. John Moody. I hanks be praised, your honour, they are all in pretty good heart, thof ' we have had a power of crosses upo' the road. Lady Grace. I hope my Lady has no hurt, Mr. Moody. John. Noa, an't please your ladyship, she was never in better humour : There's money enough stirring now. Manly. What has been the matter, John } John. Why, we came up in such a hurry, you mun think that our tackle was not so tight as it should be. Manly. Come, tell us all : pray how do they travel ^ John. Why i' the auld coach, Measter ; and cause my Lady loves to do things handsome, to be sure, she would have a couple of cart horses clapt to th' four old SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATIONS 145 geldings, that neighbours might see she went up to London in her coach and six ! And so Giles Joulter the ploughman rides postilion 1 Lord Totvnley. And when do you expect them here, John ? John. V^hy, we were in hopes to ha' come yesterday, an' it had no' been that th' owld wheaze-belly horse tired ; and then we were so cruelly loaden, that the two forewheels came crash down at once in Waggon-Rut Lane ; and there we lost four hours 'fore we could set things to rights again. Manly. So they bring all their baggage with the coach then ? John. Ay, ay, and good store on't there is. Why, my Lady's gear alone were as much as filled four port- mantel trunks, besides the great deal box that heavy Ralph and the monkey sit on behind. Lady Grace. Well, Mr. Moody, and pray how many are there within the coach } John. Why, there's my Lady and his Worship, and the young squoire, and Miss Jenny, and the fat lap-dog, and my lady's maid Mrs. Handy, and Doll Tripe the cook ; that's all. Only Doll puked a little with riding backward, so they hoisted her into the coach-box, and then her stomach was easy. Lady Grace. Oh 1 I see 'em go by me. Ah ! ha ! John. Then, you mun think, Measter, there was some stowage for the belly, as well as th' back too ; such cargoes of plum cake, and baskets of tongues, and biscuits and cheese, and cold boiled beef, and then in K 146 CARRIAGES AND COACHES case of sickness, bottles of cherry-brandy, plague-water, sack, tent, and strong beer, so plenty as made the owld coach crack again ! Mercy upon 'em ! and send 'em all well to town, I say. Manly. Ay ! and well on't again, John. Joh7i. Ods bud ! Measter, you're a wise mon ; and for that matter, so am I. Whoam's whoam, I say ; I'm sure we got but little good e'er we turned our backs on't. Nothing but mischief! Some devil's trick or other plagued us, aw th' day lung. Crack goes one thing : Bawnce goes another. Woa, says Roger. Then souse ! we are all set fast in a sleugh. Whaw ! cries Miss ; scream go the maids ; and bawl ! just as thof they were struck ! And soj mercy on us ! this was the trade from morning to night. Chapter the Sixth EARLT GEORGIAN CARRIAGES " May the proud chariot never be my fate, If purchased at so mean, so dear a rate. Oh, rather give me sweet content on foot, Wrapt in my virtue and a good surtout." Gay's Trivia. FEW new private carriages seem to have been designed during the earlier decades of the eighteenth century, although improvements and small alterations were constantly being carried out. There is an isolated reference to a sociable built apparently in Germany, and t\\Q four-wheeled chaise, or chariot a rAnglaise, which was to be so popular thirty or forty years later, put in an appearance about this time. Of the sociable little enough can be said. The particular carriage mentioned from its small size would appear to have been built for the royal children. It was a low-hung, open carriage over a single perch, and with seats facing each other. The four-wheeled chaise was a small chariot with a wide window in front. Gray, writing to his mother in 1739, speaks of the French chaise in which he was making the grand tour with Horace Walpole. "The chaise," he writes, "is a strange sort of con- veyance, of much greater use than beauty ; resembling an ill-shaped chariot, only with the door opening before 7 148 CARRIAGES AND COACHES instead of the side. Three horses draw it, one between the shafts, and the other two on each side, on one of which the postillion rides, and drives too : This vehicle will upon occasion, go fourscore miles a day, but Mr. Walpole, being in no hurry, chooses to make easy journies of it, and they are easy ones indeed ; for the motion is much like that of a sedan, we go about six miles an hour, and commonly change horses at the end of it. It is true they are not very graceful steeds, but they go well, and through roads which they say are bad for France, but to me they seem gravel walks and bowling-greens ; in short, it would be the finest travel- ling in the world, were it not for the inns." Such a chaise as Gray describes came to be known as a diligence, while in England the one-horse chaise was more frequently spoken of as a one-horse chair. Con- temporary prints of carriages, however, are scarce, and for the most part show only the larger coaches. These coaches were of two distinct patterns. There were the large square coaches of Charles II's time, but there was also a new type of coach or chariot which had a curious backward tilt to the body. From a super- ficial examination of such a carriage, it would appear impossible for the seats to have been horizontal, and, indeed, one wonders why this form was adopted. The result of this backward tilt was to leave a space between the coachman's box and the carriage-body itself. Here one of the grooms sat or sprawled as best he could. Four, five, or even six other grooms stood uncomfort- ably huddled together on a seat or slab at the back. These men must have added considerably to the weight of the coach, and certainly did not make travelling any swifter ; but how necessary they were is shown by a PN Jv ■K* T-^ ^ o '■^ ■^ "K^ •^ ^ TV ^ "^ i=j) "^■, ^ •vi *.*^ "-Q ■,^ &yi ■?: * '^^ s ) l: ~-i '^j 5; ^ ^ t^ ^ p^ ^3 ■iS ^ Ei <\i ^ ■a f^ ^ •^ . ■a S CJ 1 ^^ ■K4 ^ t<* CO %i -J5 bn V- EARLY GEORGIAN CARRIAGES 149 letter of the period in which one nobleman's servant in London informs another in Essex that my lord is re- solved to set out. The Essex man is bidden to have " the keepers and persons who know the holes and the sloughs " ready to meet his lordship " with lanterns and long poles " to keep the coach on its way. So many accidents happened even on the shortest journeys that five or six men were necessary to put the coach aright. A road, such as we think of one now, simply did not exist. You had often to drive across fields in tracks which exceedingly heavy waggons had made. In 1703, to take another instance, the King of Spain, then in this country, was journeying from Portsmouth to Windsor. The difficulties he experienced on that occasion were recorded by one of the attendants. " We set out at six in the morning to go to Pet- worth, and did not get out of the coaches (save only when we were overturned or stuck fast in the mire) till we arrived at our journey's end. 'Twas hard ser- vice for the prince to sit fourteen hours in the coach that day without eating anything and passing through the worst ways that I ever saw in my life ; we were thrown but once indeed in going, but both our coach, which was the leading, and his highnesse's body-coach would have suffered very often if the nimble boors of Sussex had not frequently poised it or supported it with their shoulders from Goldalmin almost to Petworth ; and the nearer we approached to the Duke's house the more unaccessible it seemed to be. The last nine miles of the way cost us six hours' time to conquer them, and indeed we had never done it if our good master had not several times lent us a pair of horses out of his own coach, whereby we were enabled to trace out the way for him" 150 CARRIAGES AND COACHES After reading such an account, it is difficult to understand why any one preferred coach to horseback on a cross-country journey. No wonder Gay was goaded to ask : — "Who can recount the coach's various harms, The legs disjointed, and the broken arms ? " " In the wide gulph," he says in another place, *' the shatter'd coach o'erthrown Sinks with the snorting steeds ; the reins are broke, And from the crackhng axle flies the spoke." Yetj according to Swift, Gay was not so averse to the coach in his later years. Writing to him in 1731, the Dean says : — "If your ramble was on horseback, I am glad of it on account of your health ; but I know your arts of patch- ing up a journey between stage-coaches and friends' coaches : for you are as arrant a cockney as any hosier in Cheapside. . . . You love twelve-penny coaches too well, without considering that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half a crown a day." " A coach and six horses," he goes on to say in another letter, " is the utmost exercise you can bear, and this only when you can fill it with such company as is best suited to avoid your taste, and how glad would you be if it could waft you in the air to avoid jolting." There is preserved a chariot of this period which is probably typical of a nobleman's carriage of the time. It was built for one of the Bligh family, possibly the first Lord Darnley, about 1720. It is a small carriage, curved curiously in a fashion which recalls some of the French furniture of the period. The body is slung upon leather braces, there is a single wide perch. EARLY GEORGIAN CARRIAGES 151 and there are small elbow springs under the body at the back. It is very elaborately ornamented, and still keeps some of its pristine magnificence. A curious point about the Darnley chariot, to which some people have wrongfully ascribed a much earlier date, is the length of the door, which reaches nearly a foot below the bottom of the body. A similar peculiarity is to be seen in another coach of the period which was built in 1 7 13 for the Spanish representative at the time of the Peace of Utrecht. Here "the quarters rake towards the roof considerably, the roof over the doorway is arched upwards, the upper quarters are filled with large glasses of mirror plate glass. . . . The wheels have carved spokes and felloes. . . . There is a hammercloth cushion in front and a foot-board supported by Tritons blowing horns." Another Spanish coach, with spiral spokes and similar peculiarities, is preserved at Madrid. This elongated door seems peculiar to the period and may have followed upon a desire to hide the steps, though the lowness of the carriage made more than one or two of these unnecessary. Many of the Spanish coaches of this time, by the way, were without the coach- box, postilions only being employed — the story being that a certain Duke of Olivarez found that his coachman had heard and betrayed a State secret. There was, I believe, actually a law passed in Spain forbidding coach- men altogether. French coaches were very resplendent. " When I was in France," writes Addison in one of the earlier Spectators^ " I used to gaze with great Astonishment at the Splendid Equipages and Party-Coloured Habits, of that Fantastick Nation. I was one Day in particular 152 CARRIAGES AND COACHES contemplating a Lady, that sate in a Coach adorned with gilded Cupids, and finely painted with the Loves of Venus and Adonis. The Coach was drawn by six milk- white Horses, and loaden behind with the same Number of powder'd Footmen. Just before the Lady were a Couple of beautiful Pages that were stuck among the Harness, and, by their gay Dresses and smiling Features, looked like the elder Brothers of the little Boys that were carved and painted in every corner of the Coach." The boys " stuck among the harness " obviously were resting in that space which was made by the back-tilting of the body. The Viennese coaches of this time seem to have had a very great deal of glass about them, but the Turkish coaches had none. Writing home from Adrianople in 1717, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu says : — "Designing to go [to Sophia] incognita^ I hired a Turkish coach. These voitures are not at all like ours, but much more convenient for the country, the heat being so great that glasses would be very troublesome. They are made a good deal in the manner of the Dutch coaches, having wooden lattices painted and gilded ; the inside being painted with baskets and nosegays of flowers, intermixed commonly with little poetical mottoes. They are covered all over with scarlet cloth, lined with silk, and very often richly embroidered and fringed. This covering entirely hides the persons in them, but may be thrown back at pleasure, and the ladies peep through the lattices. They hold four people vtry conveniently, seated on cushions, but not raised." They were, it would seem, mere covered waggons, and, indeed, in another place Lady Mary speaks of them as such. Turkey possessed also "open gilded ?N o ^ fcq Co 1~4 CO EARLY GEORGIAN CARRIAGES 153 chariots," but in these the women were not allowed to drive. Russia, too, at this time possessed coaches, and we read that Peter the Great in his trans-European journey- travelled with " thirty-two four-horse carriages and four six-horse waggons." One or two particulars are forthcoming of the royal coach-house. It contained but two coaches, with four places in each, for the use of the Empress and a smaller, low-hung carriage, painted red, for the Emperor. This was replaced in winter by a small sledge. Peter, however, was not fond of his carriage. "He never," says Waliszewski,^ "got into a coach, unless he was called upon to do honour to some distinguished guest, and then he always made use of Menshikof's carriages. These were magnificent. Even when the favourite went out alone, he drove in a gilded fan-shaped coach, drawn by six horses, in crimson velvet trappings, with gold and silver ornaments ; his arms crowned with a prince's coronet, adorned the panels ; lacqueys and running footmen in rich liveries ran before it ; pages and musicians, dressed in velvet, and covered with gold embroideries, followed it. Six gentlemen attended it at each door, and an escort of dragoons completed the procession." It is difficult to conceive the appearance of this fan- shaped coach, but it must have been almost startlingly magnificent, just the kind of carriage for the Russian Buckingham. In the imperial collection at Petersburg are preserved one or two Russian carriages of this period. " One," 1 Peter the Great. By K. Waliszewski. Translated by Lady Mary Loyd. London, 1898. 154 CARRIAGES AND COACHES says Bridges Adams, " is close, made of deal, stained black, mounted on four wheels, the windows of mica instead of glass, and the frames of common tin : the other is open, with a small machine behind of the shipwright-emperor's invention — its purpose to deter- mine the number of miles traversed on a journey. In the same collection," he adds, "is the litter of Charles XII used at the battle of Pultowa." In England glass seems to have been reserved for the private coaches. For the commoner hackneys a substi- tute had been found. " For want of Glasses to our Coach," wrote the inimitable Ned Ward in The London Sfy^ a book whose outspokenness unfortunately must, I suppose, have prevented its reprinting in modern days, " we drew up our Tin Sashes, pink'd like the bottom of a Cullender, that the Air might pass thro' the holes, and defend us from Stifling." If, however, contemporary plates are singularly scarce, and the historians have little to say of the period, there is a new source of information to be tapped, at any rate in this country, in the advertisements which just now began to fill whole pages in the periodicals. Of these I may quote one or two. One deals specifically with the question of glass windows : — *' These are to give notice to all Persons that have occasions for Coach Glasses, or Glasses for Sash Windows, that they may be furnished with all sorts, at half the prices they were formerly sold for." Twelve inches square cost half a crown, thirty-six inches two pounds ten shillings. Other advertisements concern the coaches themselves. In Anne's day calashes, chaizes, both two- and four- EARLY GEORGIAN CARRIAGES 155 wheeled, as well as the larger chariots — these often flamboyantly decorated — were constantly for sale. "A very fine chaize," we read, "very well Carved, gilded and painted, and lined with Blue Velvet, and a very good horse for it, are to be sold together, or apart." " A curious 4-Wheel shaze. Crane Neck'd, little the worse for wearing, it is to be used with i or 2 Horses, and there is a fine Harness for one Horse, and a Reputable Sumpture Laopard Covering." Here then is mention of a four-wheeled chaise with a perch curved in front after the German fashion. Other chaises for sale had only two wheels : — "At the Greyhound in West Smithfield is to be sold a Two-Wheeled Chaize, with a pair of Horses well match'd : It has run over a Bank and a Ditch 5 Foot High ; and likewise through a deep Pit within the Ring at Hide Park, in the presence of several persons of Quality ; which are very satisfied it cannot be over- turn'd with fair Driving. It is to be Lett for 7s. 6d. a Day, with some Abatement for a longer Time." One is reminded of Sir Richard Bulkeley's wonderful calash. Here was surely a rival. Calashes were now common, though precisely what the difference was between them and the two-wheel chaises I am unable to say. Indeed, there is some confusion also between the small chariots and the four-wheel chaises, and the words seem to have become interchangeable. Both came to resemble the coupe of a later day, being like a modern coach with the front part removed. Sometimes the coachman's box was on a level with the roof, but often much lower, and sometimes altogether 156 CARRIAGES AND COACHES absent, the horses being ridden by a postilion. Prob- ably the carriage was called a chariot when it possessed a coachman's box, such as was used in town, and a chaise when it was absent. It was a calash that Squire Morley of Halstead wished for, but did not obtain, in Prior's ballad of Down-Hall, " Then answer'd Squire Morley ; Pray get a calash, That in summer may burn, and in winter may splash ; I love dust and dirt •, and 'tis always my pleasure, To take with me much of the soil that I measure. " But Matthew thought better : for Matthew thought right. And hired a chariot so trim and so tight, That extremes both of winter and summer might pass : For one window was canvas, the other was glass." Prior evidently liked the chaises of Holland. "While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix, And in one day atone for the business of six, In a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night. On my left hand my Horace, a nymph on my right : No Memoirs to compose, and no Post-boy to move, That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love ; For her, neither visits, nor parties at tea, Nor the long-winded cant of a dull Refugee : This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine, To good or ill-fortune the third we resign : Thus scorning the world and superior to fate, I drive on my car in processional state." Another advertisement tells of a gentleman who brought a one-horse calash to an Inn near Hyde Park Corner, took away the horse ten days later, but left his carriage " as a pawn for what was due for the same." In a while the inn-keeper was advertising the fact that unless the owner claimed it within ten days he should sell the carriage for what it would fetch. A more EARLY GEORGIAN CARRIAGES 157 curious advertisement belonging to this period may be quoted in full : — "Lost the 26th of February, about 9 a Clock at Night, between the Angel and Crown Tavern in Thread- needle Street, and the end of Bucklers Berry, the side door of a Chariot, Painted Coffee Colour, with a Round Cypher in the Pannel, Lin'd with White Cloath embos'd with Red, having a Glass in one Frame, and White Canvas in another, with Red Strings to both Frames. Whoever hath taken it up are desir'd to bring it to Mr. Jacob's a Coachmaker at the corner of St. Mary Ax near London Wall, where they shall receive 30s. Reward if all be brought with it ; or if offer'd to be Pawn'd or Sold, desire it may be stop'd and notice given, or if already Pawn'd or Sold, their money again." At this time, if not before, it became customary for wealthy people to possess coaches used only when they were in mourning. So we have : — "At Mr. Harrison's, Coach Maker, in the Broadway, Westminster, is a Mourning Coach and Harness, never used, with a whole Fore Glass, and Two Glasses and all other Materials (the Person being deceased) ; also a Mourning Chariot, being little used, with all Materials likewise, and a Leather Body Coach, being very fashion- able with a Coafoay Lining and 4 Glasses, and several sorts of Shazesses, at very reasonable rates." What these reasonable rates were does not appear, but we learn from an agreement made in 171 8 between one Hodges, a job-master, and a private gentleman, the cost of hiring a complete equipage. Hodges was to main- tain " a coach, chariot, and harness neat and clean, and in all manner of repair at his own charge, not including the wheels, for a consideration of five shillings and six- 158 CARRIAGES AND COACHES pence a day — this to include a pair of well-matched horses and a good, sober, honest, creditable coachman." If extra horses were required for country work, they were to be had for half a crown the pair per day. And if the coachman should break the glass when the coach was empty, Hodges and not the private gentleman should be responsible for the damage. From another advertisement of about the same time comes the information that the hammercloth of carriages was constantly being stolen. Ashton^ gives three such advertisements. "Lost off a Gentleman's Coach Box a Crimson Coffoy Hammer Cloth, with 2 yellow Laces about it." " Lost off a Gentleman's Coach Box, a Blue Hammer Cloth, trimm'd with a Gold colour'd Lace that is almost turn'd yellow." " Lost a Red Shag Hammock Cloth, with white Silk Lace round it, embroider'd with white and blue, and 3 Bulls Heads and a Squirrel for the Coat of Arms." The etymology of this hammercloth, which was simply a covering over the coach-box, seems to have puzzled people considerably. Most coachbuilders consider that the box beneath the seat used to contain a hammer and other tools necessary in case of a breakdown, whence the name. The anonymous author of the coach-building articles in the Carriage Builders' and Harness-Makers^ Art Journal scouts this idea, and suggests that it is merely a corruption of hamper-cloth — the box or chest having originally contained a hamper of provisions. The last advertisement quoted above gives hammock- ^ Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne. John Ashton. London, 1883. S«Ji» Mr 'I 1-4 K ^ 2? %i 0 ^ o THE AGE OF TRANSITION 207 The Lord Chancellor's coach was of course an ex- ceptional carriage, and Mr. Felton is caretul to give details of such lesser coaches as were being made. These he catalogues as a plain coach, a neat ornamental town coach, a landau, a travelling coach, an elegant crane-neck coach, and a vis-a-vis, which last, he says, " is seldom used by any other than persons of high character and fashion." And, indeed, this particular carriage is to be seen in numerous plates and caricatures of the time. Coming to the chariots and post-chaises, there is a good example of an English carriage of the kind at South Kensington. This apparently belonged to George III. The photograph gives but a poor idea of the great size of the original. The wheels are taller than an average man, and the length of the carriage is prodigious. The single window on either side is small, the panels are deep, and there is a small platform at the back of the body to carry luggage. A footboard still remains with supports for the driver's seat that has disappeared. It was in such a chariot, though even larger than George Ill's, that the unhappy King and Queen of France attempted to escape from Paris — that " miser- able new Berline," as Carlyle calls it, which was the very last carriage to be used for such a purpose. "On Monday night, the Twentieth of June, 1791," runs Carlyle's own wonderful account, "about eleven o'clock, there is many a hackney-coach and glass-coach {carrosse de remise)^ still rumbling, or at rest, on the streets of Paris." Into one of these glass-coaches steps "a hooded Dame with two hooded Children, a thickset 2o8 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Individual, in round hat and peruke." The coachman is Fersen himself. "Dust shall not stick to the hoofs of Fersen : crack ! crack ! the Glass-coach rattles, and every soul breathes lighter. But is Fersen on the right road ? North- eastward, to the Barrier of Saint Martin and Metz Highway, thither were we bound ; and lo, he drives right Northward ! The royal Individual, in round hat and peruke, sits astonished ; but right or wrong, there is no remedy. Crack, crack, we go incessant, through the slumbering City. Seldom, since Paris rose out of mud, or the Longhaired Kings went in Bullock-carts, was there such a drive. Mortals on each hand of you, close by, stretched out horizontal, dormant ; and we alive and quaking ! Crack, crack, through the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, — these windows, all silent, of Number 42, were Mirabeau's. Towards the Barrier not of Saint-Martin, but of Clichy on the utmost North 1 Patience, ye royal Individuals ; Fersen understands what he is about. Passing up the Rue de Clichy, he alights for one moment at Madame Sullivan's : ' Did Count Fersen's Coachman get the Baroness de Korff's new Berline .'' ' — 'Gone with it an hour-and-half ago' grumbles responsive but drowsy porter. ' Cesi bien.^ Yes, it is well ;— though had but such hour-and-half been lost, it were still better. Forth therefore, O Fersen, fast, by the Barrier de Clichy ; then Eastward along the Outer Boulevard, what horses and whipcord can do ! "Thus Fersen drives, through the ambrosial night. Sleeping Paris is now all on the right-hand of him ; silent except for some snoring hum : and now he is Eastward as far as the Barrier de Saint-Martin ; look- ing earnestly for Baroness de Korff's Berline. This Heaven's Berline he at length does descry, drawn up with its six Horses, his own German Coachman waiting on the box. . . . The august Glass-Coach fare, six Si THE AGE OF TRANSITION 209 Insides, hastily packs itself into the new Berline ; two Bodyguard Couriers behind. The Glass-coach itself is turned adrift, its head towards the City ; to wander whither it lists, — and be found next morning in a ditch. But Fersen is on the new box, with its brave new hammer-cloths ; flourishing his whip ; he bolts forward towards Bondy. There a third and final Bodyguard Courier of ours ought surely to be, with post-horses already ordered. There likewise ought that purchased Chaise, with the two waiting-maids and their band-boxes, to be ; whom also her Majesty could not travel without. . . . *' Once more by Heaven's blessing, it is all well. Here is the sleeping Hamlet of Bondy ; Chaise with Waiting-women ; horse all ready, and postilions with their churn-boots, impatient in the dewy dawn. Brief harnessing done, the postilions with their churn-boots vault into the saddles ; brandish circularly their little noisy whips. . . . " But scouts, all this while, and aides-de-camp, have flown forth faster than the leathern Dilis^ences. . . ." The grand new Berline has been seen in the Wood of Bondy. " Miserable new Berline 1 " apostrophises Carlyle. " Why could not Royalty go in some old Berline similar to that of other men .'' Flying for life, one does not stickle about his vehicle. Monsieur, in a commonplace travelling-carriage, is off Northwards ; Madame, his Princess, in another, with variation of route ; they cross one another while changing horses, without look of recognition ; and reach Flanders, no man questioning them. . . . " All runs along, unmolested, speedy, except only the new Berline. Huge leathern vehicle : — huge Argosy, let us say, or Acapulco-ship ; with its heavy stern-boat of Chaise-and-pair ; with its three yellow Pilot-boats of o 210 CARRIAGES AND COACHES mounted Bodyguard Couriers, rocking aimless round it and ahead of it, to bewilder, not to guide ! It lumbers along lurchingly with stress, at a snail's pace ; noted of all the world." It has indeed been seen, and soldiers rush after it, and the huge Berline is brought back to Paris in what was surely the most terrible procession ever witnessed. . . . The Korff Berline was probably not built so high as some of the English posting chariots of the time. The perch of these was often more than four feet from the ground. According to Felton you could buy a plain post-chaise for j^93, or a neat town chariot for £^\. Or you might have a landaulet, a demi-landau, or a sulky, which at this time was " a light carriage built exactly in the form of a post-chaise, chariot, or demi-landau," and like the vis-a-vis was "contracted on the seat, so that only one person can sit thereon, and is called a sulky from the proprietor's desire of riding alone." The landaulet was to the landau as the chariot was to the coach. It was simply a chariot made to open. The hood was of "greasy harness leather, dis- agreeable to the touch or smell, and continually needing oil and blacking" rubbed into it to keep it supple and black. Then there was the phaeton, which had lost none of its popularity, and was built as lofty as ever. "The handsomest mixture of danger with dignity," wrote Leigh Hunt, " in the shape of a carriage, was the tall phaeton with its yellow wings. We remember looking up to it with respect in our childhood, partly THE AGE OF TRANSITION 211 for its loftiness, partly for its name, and partly for the show it makes in the prints to novels of the period. The most gallant figure which modern driving ever cut was in the person of a late Duke of Hamilton ; of whom we have read or heard somewhere, that he used to dash round the streets of Rome, with his horses panting, and his hounds barking about his phaeton, to the equal fright and admiration of the Masters of the World, who were accustomed to witness nothing higher than a lumbering old coach, or a cardinal on a mule." But far more conspicuous a figure than this Duke of Hamilton was Colonel (Tommy) Onslow, afterwards Lord Cranley, of whom there is a caricature by Gillray, with the following once famous lines : — " What can litde T. O. do ? Why drive a phaeton and two. Can little T. O. do no more ? Yes, drive a phaeton and four ! " The Colonel, however, was surpassed, as we have seen, by Sir John Lade, who drove six greys. George IV, when Prince of Wales, was satisfied with a pair, but his horses were "caparisoned with blue harness stitched with red," their manes " being plaited with scarlet ribbons, while they wore plumes of feathers on their heads." The structure of these phaetons differed. Gillray's picture shows the body hung midway between the two axles, though he may not have troubled to be exact in this respect. The commonest form was the perch-high phaeto?i, in which the body was hung directly over the front axle, the hind wheels being much larger than those in front, and the bottom of the body being five feet from the ground. Others were less lofty. In the one- 212 CARRIAGES AND COACHES horse -phaeton the body was hung over the back axle with "grasshopper" springs, and "was joined to the fore- carriage, which was without springs, by wooden stays " — a very different carriage. This in time led to the -pony phaeton used by George IV in 1824. Here all idea of great height had been abandoned so as to allow His Majesty to enter his carriage without the fatigue of climbing several steps. Queen Victoria's pony phaeton was a similar vehicle, and indeed it was from such a carriage that the victoria was evolved at a rather later date. "What connexion there could be," wrote Bridges Adams some forty years later in a passage not altogether devoid of epithets, " between this vehicle and the fabled car of the Sun-God, to obtain for it such a title, it is difficult to conceive. . . . The vehicle looked like a mechanical illustration of the play of Much Ado about Nothing. It was a contrivance to make an enormously high and dangerous seat for two persons, inconvenient to drive from, and at the same time to consume as much material and mix as many unsightly and inharmonious lines as possible. The framework of the carriage was constructed with two iron perches, the outline of which was hideously ugly ; but the camel-like hump had at least the mechanical advantage of permitting a higher fore wheel than could otherwise be used. The shape of the body was as though the rudest possible form capable of affording a seat had been put together. An un- graceful form of upright pillar or standard was first selected, into which was framed a horizontal ugly curve for a seat, connected at the top by an ungainly-looking elbow, and a formal serpentine curve behind, from which was projected like an excrescence an ugly leathern box called a sword-case. The front of the upright pillar was continued into a most formal curve, and from its THE AGE OF TRANSITION 213 point rose an ungraceful bracket, to support a foot- board, on the extreme edge of which was coiled an ugly- piece of leather called an apron. The construction of the body was such that it could not possibly hold together by the strength of its own framing ; and to remedy this, a curved iron stay was introduced in the worst possible taste. . . . The fore springs rather re- sembled the flourishing strokes made by a school- master, when heading a copy-book or Christmas piece, than any legitimate mechanical contrivance ; and the motion must have been detestable, rendering the act of driving difficult, and lessening the power of the drivers over their horses. The servant's seat be- hind " — not always present — " placed on curved blocks without any springs, completed this extraordinary- looking vehicle. To sit on such a seat, when the horses were going at much speed, would require as much skill as is evinced by a rope-dancer at the theatre." Which shows that in 1837, at any rate, people's ideas had undergone a considerable change with regard to a really fashionable equipage. The only other four-wheeled vehicle I need mention here was the sociable which, according to Felton, was " merely a phaeton with a double or treble body." It was made with or without doors, and with or without a driving seat. A good example of this carriage is shown in Gillray's print T^he Middlesex Election of 1804.. Coming to the two-wheeled vehicles, the chief of these were the curricle^ the gig or chaise^ and the whiskey. As a general rule it may be taken that when a gig had two horses it was called a curricle, and when there was only one, a chaise. In the Prince Regent's time the curricle was "the most stylish of all conveyances." In shape 214 CARRIAGES AND COACHES nearly all these gigs were identical, though one reads that the notorious " Romeo " Coates drove in one whose body was shaped like a shell. ^ They were of various heights, a particularly lofty one being known in Ireland as the suicide gig. The caned whiskey was a gig whose body, " fixed upon the shafts — which again were connected with the long horizontal springs by scroll irons," had a movable hood. The Rib Chair was similar to the whiskey, but without springs. It is really only possible to differentiate properly between these light carriages and the other hybrids, so soon to appear, by means of prints and photographs. To the non-technical mind they are almost identical with each other. " The prettiest of these vehicles," Leigh Hunt writes, after confessing that he has no ambition to drive tandem, as was so often done, or to run into danger with a phaeton, "is the curricle, which is also the safest. There is something worth looking at in a pair of horses, with that sparkling pole of steel laid across them. It is like a bar of music, comprising their harmonious course. But to us, even gigs are but a sort of unsuccessful gentility. The driver, to all intents and purposes, had better be on the horse." I need say very little of the public carriages. There is, however, one point in connection with the later stage- coaches which bears upon the question that was only solved by Obadiah Elliott in 1804. On September 20, 1770, according to the Annual Register^ there was an 1 « The shape of the body," says Bridges Adams, describing Coates's carriage, " was that of a classic sea-god's car, and it was constructed in copper. This vehicle was very beautiful in its outline, though disfigured by the absurdity of its ornamental work." When Coates had a fall, Horace Smith, of Rejected Addresses fame, seized the occasion to write a mock condoling poem. THE AGE OF TRANSITION 215 accident to one of them which was growing increasingly common. " It were greatly to be wished," runs this account, "the stage coaches were put under some regulations as to the number of persons and quantity of baggage. Thirty-four persons were in and about the Hertford Coach this day when it broke down by one of the braces giving way." No wonder it broke down ! It is interesting to note, however, that even the more humane stage-coachmen, so far from objecting, as you might imagine they would have done, to such overcrowding, actively encouraged it and for a very odd reason. At this time springs of a kind were being applied to the coaches, which con- sequently travelled with greater ease than before, but the coaches themselves happened also to be built very high, like all other vehicles, and nothing could convince the silly coachmen that the easy running was not due to a heavy load being applied to the top of a high carriage. It became necessary, therefore, to pass legislation, which was accordingly done in 1785 and again in 1790, re- stricting the number of passengers allowed. At this time, too, Mr. John Palmer's first diligence, or mail-coach, had appeared as a quick and cheap method of carrying letters, and these mail-coaches very rapidly took the fancy of passengers. Palmer, however, was a man with great powers of organisation, and before the new century had dawned, had his coaches running upon every high road in the country.^ " The mail coaches," wrote a French nobleman after visiting this country at the beginning of the new century, 1 For a detailed account of these mail-coaches the reader is referred to Mr. Charles Harper's book, Stage Coach and Mail in the Days of Tore. 2i6 CARRIAGEa AND COACHES 1 , " afford means of travelling with great celerity into all parts of England. They are Berlins, firm and light, holding four persons ; they carry only letters, and do not take charge of any luggage. They are drawn by four horses, and driven by one coachman ; they travel never less than seven to eight miles an hour." One or two particular inventions may also be noted. This same nobleman, continuing his account, says : — " Stage Coaches are very numerous, they are kept in every City, and even in small towns ; all these carriages have small wheels, and hold six persons, without reckon- ing the outside passengers. About twenty years ago a carriage was invented in the form of a gondola ; it is long, and will hold sixteen persons sitting face to face ; the door is behind, and this plan ought to be generally adopted, as the only means of escaping a great danger when the horses run away. What adds to the singularity of these carriages is, that they have eight wheels ; thus dividing equally the weight, they are less liable to be overturned, or cut up the roads ; they are, besides, very low and easy. *' When these long coaches first appeared at Southamp- ton, a City much frequented in summer by rich inhabi- tants of London, who go there to enjoy sea bathing, they had (as every new thing has) a great run, so that it was nearly impossible to get a place in them. " One of the principal Innkeepers, jealous of this success, set up another, and, to obtain the preference, he reduced the fare to half-price, at that time a guinea. In order to defeat this manoeuvre, the first proprietor made a still greater reduction, so that, at last, the receipts did not cover the expenses. But the two rivals did not stop here ; for one of them announced that he would take nothing of gentlemen who might honour him by choos- ing his Coach, but he would beg them to accept a bottle of Port before their departure." 1 CO ^r .5 § ^ ^ THE AGE OF TRANSITION 217 But not even such a temptation seems to have made these long coaches a success. The other innovation, though properly belonging to a slightly later date, was the patent coach invented by the Reverend William Milton. He explained his coach in a letter to Sir John Sinclair.^ " Permit me, Sir, to explain, in a few words, the nature of my invention. — In a stage-coach, an overturn is rendered much less likely to happen, by placing as much as possible of the heavy luggage of each journey, in a luggage-box below the body of the carriage ; the body not being higher than usual. This brings down the centre of gravit}^ of the total coach and load (a point which at present, at every inequality of the road and change of quarter, vacillates most dangerously), it brings it down to a place of great comparative safety. "To prevent the fatal and disastrous consequences of breaking down, there are placed, at the sides or corners of this luggage-box, small strong idle wheels, with their periphery below its floor ; ready, in case of a wheel coming off or breaking, or an axletree failing, to catch the falling carriage, and instantly to continue its previous velocity ; thereby preventing that sudden stop to rapid motion, which at present constantly attends the breaking down, and which has so frequently proved fatal to the coachman and outside passengers. — The bottom of this luggage-box is meant to be about twelve or thirteen inches from the ground, and the idle wheels seven, six, or five. If at a less distance still, no inconvenience will result ; for when either of them takes over an obstacle in the road, it instantly, and during the need, discharges its respective active wheel from the ground, and works in its stead." ^ The Danger of Travelling in Stage-Coaches ; and a Remedy Proposed to the Consideration of the Public, by the Rev. William Milton, a.m., Vicar of Hcckfi'ld, Hants. Reading, 1810. 21 8 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Several coaches were built to Mr. Milton's specifica- tions, but like so many other patent coaches they were speedily forgotten. It is only necessary to add here that about 1800 " outside passengers were first enabled to ride on the roofs of coaches without incurring the imminent hazard of being thrown off whenever their vigilance and their anxious grip relaxed." For it was then, says Mr. Har- per, "that fore and hind boots, framed to the body of the coach, became general, thus affording foothold to the outsides. Mail coaches were not the cause of this change, for they originally carried no passengers on the roof. We cannot fix the exact date of this improve- ment," he adds, " and may suppose that in common with every other innovation, it was gradual, and only intro- duced when new coaches became necessary on the various routes. The immediate result was to democratise coach- travelling." On the other hand, it became a common practice amongst the smart youths of the day to drive the stage- coaches themselves. So we read in a paper of this time : — " The education of our youth of fashion is improving daily : several of them now drive Stage Coaches to town, and open the door of the Carriage for passengers, while the coachman remains on the box. They farm the perquisites from the Coachman on the road, and generally pocket something into the bargain." Which was, according to the writer, " a fit subject for ridicule on any stage." The post-chaises were as ubiquitous as ever. The French nobleman, from whose book I have already quoted, entered one so soon as he landed at Dover. ^ >^^ <^ OO <^0 t^ «s ■♦>• CO S^ «o "-1 ^ i^ ^ * ^-^ "<: ^ <^ a< --Q ?>, •K4 -ti X bo ^ t*H THE AGE OF TRANSITION 219 "The Post," he records, "is not, as on the Con- tinent, an establishment dependent upon the Govern- ment ; individuals undertake this business ; most of the inns keep Post Chaises ; they are good Carriages with four wheels, shut close, the same kind as we call in France diligences de ville. They hold three persons in the back with ease ; are narrow, extremely light ; well hung, and appear the more easy, because the roads are not paved with stone. The postilions wear a jacket with sleeves, tight boots, and, altogether, their dress is light, and extremely neat ; and they are not only civil, but even respectful. On your arrival at the Inn, you are shown into a good room, where a fire is kept in winter, and tea is ready every hour of the day. In five minutes at most, another Chaise is ready for your de- parture. If we compare these customs with those of Germany, or particularly in the North, where you must often wait whole hours to change horses, in a dirty room, heated by an iron stove, the smell of which is suffocating ; or even those of France, where the most part of the post-houses, not being Inns, have no accom- modation for travellers, it is evident that the advantage is not in favour of the Continent." Indeed, England at this time was superior to most European countries so far as her posting-carriages and roads were concerned. Leigh Hunt, in expressing his delight of them, was only following in the wake of Johnson and the others who had always enjoyed their cross-country rides. "A post-chaise," he says, "involves the idea of travelling which, in company of those we love, is home in motion. The smooth running along the road, the fresh air, the variety of scene, the leafy roads, the burst- ing prospects, the clatter through a town, the gaping gaze of a village, the hearty appetite, the leisure (your 220 CARRIAGES AND COACHES chaise waiting only upon your own movements), even the little contradictions to home-comfort, and the ex- pedients upon which they set us, all put the animal spirits at work, and throw a novelty over the road of life. If anything could grind us young again, it would be the wheels of a post-chaise. The only monotonous sight is the perpetual up-and-down movement of the postilion, who, we wish exceedingly, could take a chair. His occasional retreat to the bar which occupies the place of a box, and his affecting to sit upon it, only remind us of its exquisite want of accommodation. But some have given the bar, lately, a surreptitious squeeze in the middle, and flattened it a little into something obliquely resembling an inconvenient seat." Prints of these post-chaises are common. Rowland- son, in particular, loved to draw them. Gillray, too, shows the post-chaise in Scotland and Ireland, where apparently things were not quite so easy as in England. The Scottish post-chaise is shown breaking to pieces, and the Irish chaise is little better than a wreck, with the body held together by a piece of rope, with hardly a spoke left to the wheels, and a roof put roughly together of thatched straw. The unfortunate lady inside has put one foot through the panelling and another through the floor, which reminds one that it was of an Irish post-chaise that the famous story of the poor man who had to run with the carriage because the bottom had fallen out was originally told. It remains to consider a few particular eighteenth- century carriages of other countries. Mr. Stratton thinks that the Indians of North America had rude litters at an early date. The Incas of Peru certainly possessed magnificently decorated Early American Shay {From ''Stage Coach and Tazrni Days'' [J. M. Ear/e]) m 1 ^ ^sMlUFyS^ l^^l^Bi^Irl ^■•^^^---l^fW^ ^ ^:^ i^:.TA-^ ■ -„„_--* > A^.^A ntia ' . i X^^^^^lg^^^PW^W^ |«;3 fc ^^^^^^ Up wm. English Posting Chariot — Early Nineteenth Century (From a Photograph) THE AGE OF TRANSITION 221 sedans or palanquins, in which they progressed through their kingdom. It was not, however, until the seven- teenth century that wheeled carriages appeared in America. Sir Thomas Browne quotes from an English traveller's book, which states that by the middle of this century there were at least twenty thousand coaches in Mexico, and possibly this was true. But into North America carriages filtered but slowly. There had been coaches in Boston so early as 1669, and in Connecticut in 1685. William Penn, writing to Logan in 1700, bids his servants have the coach ready. The calash was also known at that time, but being " clumsy " was less popular than the French cabriolet or gig, which had been brought over by the Huguenots, and rapidly trans- formed into the well-known one-horse shay^ which in its turn was supplanted by the more comfortable and certainly more distinctive buggy. Bennet, travelling in America in 1740, saw many carriages in Boston. '0: "There are several families," he records, "in Boston that keep a coach and a pair of horses, and some few drive with four horses ; but for chaises and saddle- horses, considering the bulk of the place, they outdo London. They have some nimble, lively horses for the coach, but not any of that beautiful black breed so com- mon in London. . . . The country carts and wagons are generally drawn by oxen, from two to six, according to the distance, or the burden they are laden with." A Boston advertisement of 1743 mentions "a very '* handsome chariot, fit for town or country, lined with red coffy, handsomely carved and painted, with a whole front glass, the seat-cloth embroidered with silver, and *5' -■, 222 CARRIAGES AND COACHES a silk fringe round the seat." This was offered for sale by John Lucas, a local coach-builder, and had most probably been built by him. At this time several stage-coaches were running, and the shay was being used by even the poorer folk. A Philadelphian advertisement of 1746 speaks of "two very handsome chairs, with very good geers," and at this time, too, the Italian chairs and curricles were also popular. They were generally driven tandem. Even more distinctive than the shay, however, was the coachee, which is described by Isaac Weld in his travels (1795) : — " The body of it is rather longer than a coach, but of the same shape. In the front it is left quite open down to the bottom, and the driver sits on a bench under the roof of the carriage. There are two seats in it for passengers, who sit in it with their faces to the horses. The roof is supported by small props, which are placed at the corners. On each side of the door, above the panels, it is quite open ; and, to guard against bad weather, there are curtains which let down from the roof and fasten to buttons on the outside. The light wagons are in the same construction," he adds, "and are calculated to hold from four to twelve people. The wagon has no doors, but the passengers scramble in the best way they can over the seat of the driver. The wagons are used universally for stage-coaches." The American stage-waggon is also described by another Englishman, Thomas Twining, who visited the country in 1795. " The vehicle," says he, " was a long car with four benches. Three of these in the interior held nine passengers. A tenth passenger was seated by the side THE AGE OF TRANSITION 223 of the driver on the front bench. A light roof was supported by eight slender pillars, four on each side. Three large leather curtains suspended to the roof, one at each side and the third behind, were rolled up or lowered at the pleasure of the passengers. There was no place nor space for luggage, each person being ex- pected to stow his things as he could under his seat or legs. The entrance was in front over the driver's bench. Of course, the three passengers on the back seat were obliged to crawl across all the other benches to get to their places. There were no backs to the benches to support and relieve us during a rough and fatiguing journey over a newly and ill-made road." The body of these public carriages was high, and the back wheels were larger than those in front. A some- what similar conveyance is still used to-day in some of the northern districts of Australia. The commonest vehicle in Russia at this time seems to have been the taranta, which is described as " a travelling carriage whose body resembles a flat-bottomed punt." The natives apparently considered that it was a very comfortable carriage, and it certainly could hold a great quantity of luggage and wraps, but the foreigners using it did not always express a similar opinion. " We travelled certainly with speed," says Madame PfeifFer of the taranta, in her Journey round the World, " but any one who had not a body of iron, or a well- cushioned spring carriage, would not find this very agreeable, and would certainly prefer to travel slower upon these uneven, bad roads. The post-carriage, for which ten kopecs a station is paid, is nothing more than a very short wooden open car, with four wheels. In- stead of a seat some hay is laid in it, and there is just room enough for a small chest, upon which the driver :4k- 224 CARRIAGES AND COACHES sits. These cars naturally jolt very much. There is nothing to take hold of, and it requires some care to avoid being thrown out. The draught consists of three horses abreast ; over the centre one a vvooden arch is fixed, on which hang two or three bells, which continu- ally made a most disagreeable noise. In addition to this, imagine the rattling of the carriage, and the shout- ing of the driver, who is always in great activity urging on the poor animals, and it may be easily understood that, as is often the case, the carriage arrives at the station without the travellers." Even less " genteel " than the taranta was the kihitka^ " a common posting-waggon," according to Stratton, " consisting of a huge frame of unhewn sticks, fastened firmly upon two axles, the fore part of it having under- neath a solid block of hard wood, on which it rests, elevating it so as to allow the wheels to play." Other Russian carriages were the teleka, the telashka^ and the better-known droitzschka, or, as it was known in England, drosky — an improvement originally of the sledge by the mere addition of springs and wheels. In . Norway the carriole was very similar to the original French gig, and like the char-d-cote of Switzerland, was long and narrow and peculiarly adapted for mountainous countries. But in nearly all the colder regions, wheel carriages were scarcely used at all, the snow making some kind of sledge far more convenient. Captain King, in his Journey across Asia, gives a detailed de- scription of the sledges then in use (1784) in Kamtschatka. *' The body of the sledge," he says, " is about four feet and a half long and a foot wide, made in the form of a crescent, of light, tough wood, strongly bound together with wicker-work ; which in those belonging to THE AGE OF TRANSITION 225 the better sort of people is elegantly stained of a red and blue colour, and the seat covered with bear-skins, or other furs. It is supported by four legs, about two feet high, which rest on two long flat pieces of wood, extending a foot at each end beyond the body of the sledge. These are turned up before, in the manner of a skate, and shod with the bone of some sea animal. The fore part of the carriage is ornamented with thongs of leather and tassels of coloured cloth ; and from the cross-bar, to which the harness is joined, are hung links of iron, or small bells, the jingling of which they con- ceive to be encouraging to the dogs. They are seldom used to carry more than one person at a time, who sits aside [.''astride], resting his feet on the lower part of the sledge, and carrying his provisions and other necessaries, wrapped up in a bundle, behind him. The dogs are usually five in number, yoked two and two, with a leader. The reins not being fastened to the head of the dogs, but to the collar, have little power over them, and are therefore generally hung upon the sledge, whilst the driver depends entirely on their obedience to his voice for the direction of them. . . . The driver is also provided with a crooked stick, which ansv/ers the pur- pose both of whip and reins ; as by striking it into the snow, he is enabled to moderate the speed of the dogs, or even to stop them entirely. . . . Our party consisted in all of ten sledges. That in which Captain Gore was carried, was made of two lashed together, and abundantly provided with furs and bear-skins ; it had ten dogs, yoked four abreast, as had also some of those that were heavy laden with baggage." In Europe and North America these sledges were also used, and could be highly ornamented. Two of this kind, narrow and low, may be seen at South Ken- sington. They are mentioned by several travellers. Edward Wright, visiting Amsterdam in 17 19, had seen 226 CARRIAGES AND COACHES " several coach-bodies drawn upon sledges,"and explained that the inhabitants did not use wheels "to avoid shaking the foundations of the houses." Holcroft, too, at the end of the century, journeyed from Hamburg to Paris by way of Holland, and did not hide his surprise at the appearance of these sledges. " And pray, sir, what are you } " he asks in the Shan- dean manner. " We never saw so staring or so strange an animal before." " 'Tis a tropical bird, on a mast." " Can it be .'' A coach without wheels ? Yes : dragged on a sledge by a single horse, and a lady in it." Holcroft also noticed in Amsterdam what he called "a travelling haberdasher's shop with wheels, rolled through the streets by its master." This appears to have been some sort of light travelling booth. In Paris itself, he records, " there is scarcely a street which is not so narrow as to be extremely dangerous to foot passengers. They are rendered more so at some times by the ex- treme carelessness, and at others by the brutal insolence, of coachmen. There is no foot pavement ; and the only guard against carriages is formed by large stones placed at certain distances, but close to the wall." In Germany, too, he found little to please him, and warns Englishmen against bringing English-built carriages into that country, for of a surety they will be " broken up." England, indeed, about this time, seems to have been by far the most progressive country as regards locomotion. Chapter the Ninth INVENTIONS GALORE *' Prime of Life to ' go it ! ' where's the place like London : Four-in-hand to-day, to-morrow you may be undone : Where the Duke and the 'prentice they dress much the same : You cannot tell the difference, excepting by the name ! Then push along with four-in-hand, while others drive at random, In buggy, gig or dog-cart, in curricle or tandem." Egan, Life in London. IF William Felton's book shows the great improve- ments that had taken place in English carriage- building during the latter half of the eighteenth century, William Bridges Adams's English Pleasure Carriages, published in 1837, sufficiently shows the enoimous improvements which had followed upon Obadiah Elliott's invention of the elliptic springs.^ In ' It may be well to add here a note on the simpler springs which were in use at this time. These seem to have been of five distinct varieties — the straight or elbow spring, the elliptic spring, the regular-curved, and the reverse-curved springs, all these being either single or double, and the spiral spring. The straight spring was used in the stage-coaches, in the later phaetons, in the Tilbury, and in most of the two-wheeled carriages. The elliptic spring, invented by Elliott, was "used single in what are called under-spring carriages, where the spring rests on the axle, and is connected with the framework by means of a dumb or imitation spring so as to form a double or complete ellipse. This is technically called an under spring." Its importance, of course, followed on its power of acting as a complete support, no perch being required to hold the two parts of the under-carriage together. Sometimes four of these springs were " hinged together in pairs," and used thus in the larger four-wheeled carriages. When a regular-curved or C spring was used, "a leathern brace was sus- pended from it to carry the body or weight." The reverse-curved spring 227 228 CARRIAGES AND COACHES the first place you had a whole series of light, perchless carriages being built, and in the second you had the new macadamised roads upon which to run them. In treating of all these various carriages, it is difficult to know where to begin. A mere catalogue with a few lines of description cannot be very satisfactory, and yet there seems no other method to adopt. Bridges Adams, who was a coach-builder himself and the inventor of several novel carriages, is a good guide, but one could have wished that his book had been illustrated by any- thing rather than those fearsome diagrams which mean so little to any one but a coach-builder himself. From the beginning of the century, indeed, illustrations of carriages began to take on that diagrammatic aspect which the trade-papers still maintain ; while at the same time the old prints and caricatures began to disappear. It is a pity, but it cannot be helped. " Though it would be difficult," says Bridges Adams, " to describe every particular variety of carriage now in use, it is comparatively easy to set forth the leading features — the original models, as it were, of each partic- ular class. The distinguishing characteristics are to be found in the form of the bodies and not in the mechan- ism of the springs or framework. Thus a particular was used in the older phaetons, and in the fore springs of the Tilbury, and springs similar to this had been used as body springs in place of suspension brackets or loops, or as upright springs, to the earlier coaches and chariots, under the technical name of S springs — "in which case leather braces were attached to them, and they were supported by a bracket or buttress of iron called the spring stay. The whip spring which succeeded them . . . was used in the same way." But in addition to these springs, there were all kinds of combinations, and the whole subject is too compli- cated for the lay mind to understand. The chief point, however, to notice is the changes in structure which were made possible by tl.e elliptic spring of Elliott's resting on the axle. INVENTIONS GALORE 229 shaped body entitles the carriage to the term Chariot, whether it be constructed with under springs or C springs, or with both, or whether it be with or without a perch. This rule obtains throughout the whole varieties of carriages ; and in those bodies which are formed by a combination " — as now began to be the case — " it is cus- tomary to call them by a double name — as Cab-Phaeton, Britzschka-Chariot, Britzschka-Phaeton, &c." Accord- ingly, I shall endeavour in a brief catalogue to point out such changes as were being made in each broad class of vehicle. The coach was still being made with a perch. It was not hung so high, but in other respects it differed but little from its predecessors. The Salisbury boot, which carried the coachman's seat, and the hammer-cloth, were still used, but for travelling long distances were removed, a smaller platform being substituted in their place. In the Driving Coach, a novelty which now became popular with gentlemen of means, and at a later date came to be commonly known as the four-i?i-hand, the wheels were rather nearer together, and the perch was short and straight. This had the boots which, as w^ have seen, had been already added to the mail- coaches for the convenience of outside passengers. " The boots and body," says Bridges Adams, " are framed together, and suspended on springs before and behind — the connection with the carriage being by means of curved blocks." Another variety of the coach was the barouche, which, though, I suppose, not technically a coach at all, if one accepts Thrupp's definition — for it was roofless — is generally classed with this kind of vehicle. There had^ •-^^i ^•>' 230 CARRIAGES AND COACHES been, I believe, a barouche in England so early as 1767, but it was not popular until a much later date. The barouche was simply a coach-body without its upper portion — an open carriage, that is to say, with high driving seat, and a hood fixed to the back if required — not indeed unlike an opened landau to look at. It was purely a town carriage. Its driving seat, similar to that in a landau, was built to hold both coachman and foot- man, " the hinder part being unprovided with a standard, which would," says Bridges Adams, " be useless, as when the head is down there is little convenience for the servant's holders, and he would moreover be unpleasantly placed, looking down on the sitters within, and listening to all the conversation," a matter of course which he would have been only too pleased to do. The barouche would hold four or six persons, and in fine weather was considered to be " the most delightful of all carriages." There was, too, a certain amount of state about it, and several noble families continued to drive in them long after most other people had given them up. When Ackermann, the publisher, invented his patent movable axles about 18 16, the barouche was one of the carriages to which these axles were fitted. A print of this carriage is shown in the accompanying illustration. A barouchet, corresponding to the landaulet, was also built at this time, but was never popular. Bridges Adams speaks of it as a graceless carriage for one horse. The town chariot, or coupe, as it was called in France, and indeed, at a later date in England, was being built lower than before, but otherwise remained unaltered. The high driving seat was still removed to transform the INVENTIONS GALORE 231 carriage into a post-chaise. Amusing instructions for buying a chariot are given by John Jervis, an old coachman, in the second volume of the Horse and Carriage Oracle, 1828. "The form of Carriages," he opines, " is as absurdly at the Mercy of Fashion, as the Cut of a Coat is — however, if the Reader is willing to let the Builder please himself with the form of the Exterior, he will not be quite so polite as to submit the construction of the Interior entirely to the caprice of his Coachmaker." Don't, he advises, have too much stuffing inside : " "The -present fashion oj Stuffing is pre- posterous, it reduces a Large Body to the size of a small One: however," he adds obligingly, "if you like to ride about for the benefit of public inspection, as your friends, my Lady Look-out, the Widow Will-be- seen — and Sir Simon Stare, do, pray, study Geoffrey Gambado on the Art of sitting politely in Carriages, with the most becoming attitudes, &c., and choose wide Door Lights and full Squabbing ; — if you wish to go about peaceably and quietly, like Sir Solomon Snug, and are contented with seeing without being seen, adopt the contracted Lights, and common Stuffing, which, among others, have this great advantage that when you sit back, you may have the side Window down, and a thorough Air passing through the Carriage, without it blowing directly in upon you : this, to Invalids who easily catch Cold, is very important." The lining of the chariot, he recom- mends, should be " green, with Lace to correspond, and the Green silk Sun Shades of the same Colour," green being pleasant to the eye. Venetian blinds, he says, are very nice in warm weather, and should be painted verdigris green on the inside and on the outside a 232 CARRIAGES AND COACHES colour which matches with that of the coach-body. Further instructions follow. You are advised never to permit officious strangers to shut your carriage door — a piece of sound advice which might well be followed to-day Vvhen seedy people expect a small tip for having watched you get into a cab — and if your coachman sees any one about to do so, he is to say "loudly and imperatively, ^Dont meddle with the Door ! ' " The chief maker of these chariots was the celebrated Samuel Hobson, " who may be truly said to have improved and remodelled every sort of carriage, which came under his notice, especially as regards the artistic form and construction, both of body and carriage." " Hobson's Chariots," indeed, were in a class by them- selves. *' He lowered the wheels of coaches and chariots," says Thrupp, " to 3 ft. 3 in. in front and 4 ft. 5 in. behind, and lengthened the carriage part once more to such a true proportion to the whole vehicle as has approved itself as correct to each succeeding genera- tion of Coachbuilders and users of carriages. He lowered the body, too, so that it could be entered by a moderate double step instead of the three-fold ladder previously in use." Mr. Jervis's remarks about the coach-maker's being allowed to choose the exterior of his customer's carriage no doubt followed on the practice, mentioned by Bridges Adams, of building particular carriages upon a general chariot basis. Of these hybrids, perhaps the most popular was the Briska-chariot. The briska itself (more correctly the britzschka) had been introduced into England from Austria about 18 18 by Mr. T. G. Adams, though ::.-m" Barouche With Ackerman's Tatent Movable Axles Landaulet With Tatent Roof and Movable Jxles INVENTIONS GALORE 233 Bridges Adams thinks that it was first brought here at a rather later date by the Earl of Clanwilliam, " who liked it for its lightness ; for which reason it probably obtained, amongst coachmen and mechanics, the translated name Brisker or Brisky.'' In England it was made in various sizes and with various modifications. A small one for one horse was " a light open carriage, fitted with a leathern top over the front inside seat ; which top had a glazed front and sides, or glazed front and Venetian blinds to the sides." Its chief characteristics were a small seat at the back of the main body and a straight bottom line to the body itself — this giving it " a ship-like and fast-going appearance." Ten years after its introduction it was so immensely popular as to threaten every other carriage ; nor was this altogether surprising, for in addition to being liked for the sake of its own lightness, it lent itself so well to every variety of purpose. And of these modified briskas, the briska- chariot was one of the most favoured. It was in particular demand with those travelling abroad, inasmuch as its great length enabled its passengers to lie at full length. Another variety, the droitzschka or drosky^ was a modification of the Russian vehicle of that name. This was built low, an open perch carriage with a hood, used chiefly by " languid, aged, or nervous persons, and children." The drosky seems to have given the idea to Mr. David Davies for his pilentum, which was very similar in appearance. This Mr. Davies is also supposed to have been the inventor of the popular '^<,['^'^\ cab-phaeton, a one-horse, low-hung carriage suspended -It * on four elliptic springs. On the Continent this carriage became known as a milord, once most aristocratic, but > Sfe, 234 CARRIAGES AND COACHES by 1850 little better than a hack. It was somewhat similar in appearance to the victoria. The phaeton was still made, but was being superseded by the briska. The main seat of the carriages, as in the old perch-high phaetons, was still over the front axle, but the body was now hung low on elliptic springs. Such a perchless carriage was called by Adams " the very simplest form of wheeled vehicle in ordinary use. It is literally a long box, with an arm-chair in front, and a bench behind." And that is a remarkably good description. Here, too, as with the chariots, there were also various hybrids. Landaulets were very popular in London, and were made in great quantities by the firm with which Obadiah Elliott himself was connected. A patent roof and Ackermann's movable axles are shown in the accompanying illustration of this carriage. We come now to the two-wheeled carriages. Of these the most fashionable was still the curricle, though Bridges Adams considered the shape of the body " certainly unsightly." It is interesting to notice in this connection that the mode of attaching the two horses to the curricle was " precisely that of the classic car, only more elegant." It was in a curricle that Charles Dickens rode about so soon as he was able to afford the luxury of a private carriage. The cabriolet, somewhat similar to it in form, was simply the old one-horse chaise brought up to date. The body resembled a nautilus shell, thus differing from the popular two-wheeled carriage called a tilbury. This had been built first by a carriage-maker of the same name. It was constructed without a boot (or hind seat) and was a very light carriage, with, how- Sta7iho-pe Tilbury Cabriolet INVENTIONS GALORE 235 ever, rather too much ironwork and too many springs — seven in all — about it. Italy and Portugal seem to have taken to this particular gig and numerous consignments were sent south by water. Another vehicle, not very different, was the stanhope, also built by Tilbury to the order of the Hon. Fitzroy Stanhope, a brother of Lord Petersham. This was much like the old rib chair, but hung from four springs. The only difference, so far as the shape of their bodies goes, between the tilbury and the stanhope is to be found in the fact that in the stan- hope it is rather larger and more capacious. The dennet, invented by a Mr. Bennett of Finsbury, had a body resembling that of a phaeton. It had three springs, and Bridges Adams, without being certain upon the point, thinks that it took its name from these three springs, which were named after the three Misses Dennet, " whose elegant stage-dancing was so much in vogue about the time the vehicle was first used." The lightest of all these carriages, however, was the common gig, such as that arch-joker, Theodore Hook, was accustomed to drive in, which at this time was " simply an open railed chair, fixed on the shafts, and supported on two side springs, the harder ends of which were connected to the loop irons by leathern braces — to give more freedom to the motion." Small alterations in the gig, such as the addition of a deep boot and Venetian blinds to the lockers (to carry dogs) led to the first dog-cart. Here the passengers sat back to back. Tandem-carts were very similar, though here the driver's seat was raised. The dog-cart itself gave rise to numerous varieties, such as the Newport, the Malvern, the Whitechapel, the sliding body, and the Norwich carts. 236 CARRIAGES AND COACHES In America the buggy, a light waggon, the sulky, the fantail gig, the tub-bodied gig, the chariotee, and the public sociable were the chief carriages. The rockaway, made first in 1830, was a light waggon with wooden springs on the outside of the body. The volante, much used at this time by the Spanish ladies of South America and Cuba, was a hooded gig upon two high wheels. But in America, as in Europe, no entirely new bodies or methods of framing were needed, and such little differ- ences as there were are only of interest to the coach- builder or the expert. Before passing, however, to the public conveyances, to which, it would seem, most carriage-builders of an inventive turn were now giving their attention, I may mention one or two particularly quaint or fanciful carriages which do not readily fall into a recognised class. About this time several people seem to have been at pains to produce a three-wheeled carriage, " apparently designed," says Croal, " to overcome an element of danger in the ordinary two-wheeled gig, in which so much of the business and pleasure of travelling took place." In America, the chief experiments in this direction were made by Dr. Nott, president of Union College at Schenectady, who produced a three-wheeled chariot, in which he drove about.^ " The body of the vehicle was supported by the near axle on two wheels, while a third wheel in front was in close connection with 1 Which reminds me that at the present day there is a singular three- wheeled cab to be hired in London, if only you know where to look for it. It is the only one of its kind, and rarely, I believe, appears until after nightfall. It is the kind of carriage which is to be avoided by those who have drunk not wisely but too well. C INVENTIONS GALORE 237 the shafts, so that it revolved with them as they turned. By this arrangement the body of the carriage could be hung low, supported entirely by the wheels, while the third wheel in front, revolving in a small circle with the shaft, enabled the occupants to make a short and safe turn." What became of this weird vehicle is not known, but its inventor's memory was enshrined in a song, one verse of which runs as follows : — " Where, oh where, is the good old Doctor ? Where, oh where, is the good old Doctor ? He went up in the Three Wheel Chariot, Safe into the Promised Land ! " A six-wheeled carriage was also proposed by Sir Sidney Smith. Here, as in Bridges Adams's various equirotal carriages (never successful and particularly ugly, so far as the pictures of them are concerned), the wheels were all of equal size. Great things were promised of it, but that was all. The question, how- ever, of safety carriages was being very widely con- sidered. Accidents must have been all too frequent. Runaway horses and high gigs between them were con- stantly bringing the more reckless drivers to an untimely end. In 1825 a good proposal was made for a safety gig, which was to have a contrivance fixed to the shafts so that they should remain in a horizontal position, whether the horse were between them or not. Experi- ments were also made with some such contrivance as Sir Francis Delavel had first tried with his eighteenth- century phaeton. And then came a time when almost every coach-builder had some " pet dodge " with which the dangers of travelling were supposed to be reduced to a minimum. ■i/tfi* 238 CARRIAGES AND COACHES In Ireland, where at a very early date a rough, flat- boarded waggon on two solid wheels had been used for passenger-traffic — in which case the passengers sat on the boards back to back with their legs dangling over the sides — a peculiar vehicle called a noddy was now popular. A writer in Blackwood's Magazine for 1826 speaks of this carriage. " A chaise and pair, miserable in show and substance as both really were, was a species of luxurious convey- ance to which the ambition of the middle class of travellers in Ireland before 1800 never ventured to aspire. Such as were content with a less dignified mode of travelling on wheels, the city of Dublin accommodated with a vehicle unparalleled, I believe, in any part of the world, and singular in name as well as construction. It was called a Noddy^ drawn by one horse, and carrying two, or if not of overgrown dimensions, three passen- gers. The body of this ' leathern convenience,' which bore some resemblance to an old-fashioned phaeton, ' beetled o'er its base ' in front, the better to protect the inmates ; and being slung from cross-bars by strong braces instead of springs, nodded formidably at every movement of the horse, hence deriving the appropriate appellation of Noddy. In case of rain blowing in, a curtain of the same material afforded its friendly shelter, wrapping the passengers in total darkness, though, as far as the prospect was concerned, the incon- venience was little ; the only visible object when it was withdrawn being the broad back and shoulders of the brawny driver, who rested his legs upon the shaft, and his sitting part on a sort of stool a very little way removed from the knees of the person seated within. Simple, awkwardj and uneasy as this contrivance was, it was not disdained even by senators at an earlier period than that of which I write ; and a nobleman. INVENTIONS GALORE 239 some thirty years older than myself, too, of high rank and large estate, assured me that it was his usual convey- ance to and from college accompanied by a trusty servant or private tutor." The ordinary jaunting car and the larger bian — the Invention of Bianconi, a rich tradesman in Dublin, though for many years an itinerant dealer — hardly differed In points of construction from English carriages, though the passengers sat back to back on a seat that ran parallel to the shafts. In Wales the market cart was even more primitive than the noddy of Ireland. This was a low, two- wheeled, sprlngless box of an affair. In which you sat as best you could on the boards. There was no cover- ing at all. A rail at the back, extending some way along the sides, helped to prevent you from falling out behind, if the horse gave a sudden lurch forward. Whilst European carriages were thus taking on a soberer aspect. Eastern coaches were maintaining all their old magnificence. The Maharajah of Mysore, to take one instance, travelled In a truly marvellous elephant carriage in the early years of the nineteenth century. " Its interior was a double sofa for six persons, covered with dark green velvet and gold, surmounted by an awning of cloth of gold, in the shape of two small scalloped domes, meeting over the centre, and surrounded by a richly ornamented verandah, supported by light, elegant, fluted gilt pillars. The whole was capable of containing sixty persons, and was about twenty-two feet in height. It moved on four wheels, the hinder ones eight feet In diameter, with a breadth of twelve feet between them. It was drawn by six immense 240 CARRIAGES AND COACHES elephants, an exact match in size, with a driver on each, harnessed to the carriage by traces, as in England, and their huge heads covered with a sort of cap made of richly embroidered cloth. The pace at which the elephants moved was a slow trot, of about seven miles an hour — they were very steady, and the springs of the coach particularly easy. The shape of the body was that of an extremely elegant flat scallop-shell, painted dark green and gold. This magnificent carriage was the production of native workmen, assisted by a half- caste Frenchman." Even this vehicle, however, was eclipsed by the state carriage of a ruling Burmese chief, captured by the British in 1824. "This carriage presented one entire blaze of gold, silver, and precious stones ; the last- named amounting to many thousands, including dia- monds, rubies, blue and white sapphires, emeralds, amethysts, garnets, topazes, crystals, and the curious and rare stones known as cat's eyes. The carriage stood nearly thirty feet in height," and was drawn by ele- phants. " In form and construction," says Croal, " in its elaborate and superior carving, and its grand and imposing effect, this coach takes rank as one of the most splendid equipages in existence." Many changes, meanwhile, were taking place in the public carriages. Of the mail-coaches I need say nothing at all. Nu- merous books exist which retell all those romances of the road which even in these days of motor-cars cannot be altogether forgotten. The Golden Age of coaching was at hand, and no print-shop is complete without some score or more of carefully coloured engravings of one INVENTIONS GALORE 241 or other of " the Mails." They bore particular names — there were Flying Machines and Telegraphs and the like — and they were larger than in the days when Palmer had inaugurated the system, but that was all.^ Coming to such public vehicles, however, as were in general confined to the metropolis, we find many changes. The old hackney-coaches still plied for hire. They had their particular stands, and the fares were subject to strict, though sometimes exceedingly quaint, regula- tions. The first section of the new Orders issued in 1 82 1 may be quoted as bearing upon the structure of the hackneys. " It is ordered, constituted, and ordained, that, from and after the four-and-twentieth Day of June next ensuing the Day of the Date of these Presents, the Perch of every Coach shall be Ten Feet long at the least ; and such Coach [shall] have cross Leather Braces before, and not braced down, but shall hang upon a Level, and not higher behind than before, and to be ^ A good description is given of the appearance of these coaches by Baron d'Haussez, an exiled Frenchman, in 1833. ** The appointments of an English coach are no less elegant than its form. A portly, good-looking coachman seated on a very high coach- box, well dressed, wearing white gloves, a nosegay in his button-hole, and his chin enveloped in an enormous cravat, drives four horses perfectly matched and harnessed, and as carefully groomed as when they excited admiration in the carriages of Grosvenor and Berkeley Squares. Such is the manner in which English horses are managed, such also is their docility, the effect either of temperament or training, that you do not remark the least restiveness in them. Four-horse coaches are to be seen rapidly traversing the most populous streets of London, without occasion- ing the least accident, without being at all inconvenienced in the midst of the numerous carriages which hardly leave the necessary space to pass. The swearing of ostlers is never heard at the relays any more than the neighing of horses ; nor are you interrupted on the road by the voice of the coachman or the sound of his whip, which differs only from a cabriolet whip in the length of the thong, and serves more as a sort of appendage than a means of correction in the hand which carries it." Q 242 CARRIAGES AND COACHES decent, clean, strong, and warm, with Glass Windows on each Side, or Shutters with Glasses of Nine Inches in Length, and Six Inches in Breadth in each Shutter ; and large enough to carry Four Persons conveniently ; and the Horses to every such Coach shall be able and sufficient for the Business when such Coach and Horses come from Home, to Ply ; on a Penalty not exceeding Ten Shillings, at the Discretion of the said Commis- sioners, to be paid by the Owner of the License, if the same be not rented out, and in Case the same shall be rented out, then upon a Renter thereof." Leigh Hunt could find little good to say of them. Says he, quoting from a supposititious poetess : — " Thou inconvenience ! thou hungry crop For all corn ! thou small creeper to and fro Who while thou goest ever seem'st to stop, And fiddle-faddle standest while you go ; I' the morning, freighted with a weight of woe. Unto some Lazar-house thou journiest, And in the evening tak'st a double row Of dowdies, for some dance or party drest, Besides the goods meanwhile thou movest east and west. " By thy ungallant bearing and sad mien, An inch appears the utmost thou couldst budge ; Yet at the slightest nod, or hint, or sign, Round to the curb-stone patient dost thou trudge ; School'd in a beckon, learned in a nudge ; A dull-eyed Argus watching for a fare ; Quiet and plodding, thou doest bear no grudge To whisking Tilburies, or Phaetons rare, Curricles, or Mail-coaches, swift beyond compare." Dickens was familiar with these hackneys, and in one of the Sketches by Boz draws a picture of them. " Take a regular, ponderous, rickety, London hackney- coach, of the old school, and let any man have the boldness to assert, if he can, that he ever beheld any INVENTIONS GALORE 243 object on the face of the earth which at all resembles it unless, indeed, it were another hackney-coach of the same date. We have recently observed on certain stands, and we say it with deep regret, rather dapper green chariots, and coaches of polished yellow, with four wheels of the same colour as the coach, whereas it is perfectly notorious to every one who has studied the subject, that every wheel ought to be of a different colour, and a different size. These are innovations, and, like other miscalled improvements, awful signs of the restlessness of the public mind, and the little respect paid to our time-honoured institutions. Why should hackney-coaches be clean .'' Our ancestors found them dirty, and left them so. Why should we, with a feverish wish to ' keep moving,' desire to roll along at the rate of six miles an hour, while they were content to rumble over the stones at four .'' These are solemn con- siderations. Hackney-coaches are part and parcel of the law of the land ; they were settled by the Legislature ; plated and numbered by the wisdom of Parliament. *'Then why have they been swamped by cabs and omni- buses ? Or why should people be allowed to ride quickly for eightpence a mile, after Parliament had come to the solemn decision that they should pay a shilling a mile for riding slowly ^ We pause for a reply — and, having no chance of getting one, begin a fresh paragraph. . . . "There is a hackney-coach stand under the very window at which we are writing ; there is only one coach on it now, but it is a fair specimen of the class of vehicles to which we have alluded — a great, lumbering, square concern, of a dingy yellow colour (like a bilious brunette), with very small glasses, but very huge frames; the panels are ornamented with a faded coat of arms, in shape something like a dissected bat, the axletree is red, and the majority of the wheels are green. The box is partially covered by an old great-coat, with a multiplicity of capes, and some extraordinary-looking 244 CARRIAGES AND COACHES clothes ; and the straw, with which the canvas cushion is stuffed, is sticking up in several places, as if in rivalry of the hay, which is peeping through the chinks in the boot. The horses with drooping heads, and each with a mane and tail as scanty and straggling as those of a worn-out rocking-horse, are standing patiently on some damp straw, occasionally wincing, and rattling the har- ness ; and now and then, one of them lifts his mouth to the ear of his companion, as if he were saying in a whisper, that he should like to assassinate the coachman. The coachman himself is in the watering-house ; and the waterman, with his hands forced into his pockets as far as they can possibly go, is dancing the ' double shuffle,' in front of the pump, to keep his feet warm. . . . " Talk of cabs ! Cabs are all very well in cases of expedition, when it's a matter of neck or nothing, life or death, your temporary home or your long one. But, besides a cab's lacking that gravity of deportment which so peculiarly distinguishes a hackney-coach, let it never be forgotten that a cab is a thing of yesterday, and that he never was anything better. A hackney-cab had always been a hackney-cab, from his first entry into life ; whereas a hackney-coach is a remnant of past gentility, a victim to fashion, a hanger-on of an old English family, wearing their arms, and in days of yore, escorted by men wearing their livery, stripped of his finery, and thrown upon the world, like a once-smart footman when he is no longer sufficiently juvenile for his office, pro- gressing lower and lower in the scale of four-wheeled degradation, until at last it comes to — a stand I " These new cabs, indeed, were, as Dickens says, a thing of yesterday, but they had had ancestors. Their immediate forefathers came from Paris, where they had been known for some time under the name of cabriolets de 'place. Light two-wheeled carriages, these were, which had been evolved quite naturally from the original INVENTIONS GALORE 245 French gig of the seventeenth century. The popularity of these cabriolets in Paris naturally led certain enterprising people in London to attempt their im- portation, but there was a difficulty to be surmounted. The proprietors of the hackney-coaches had secured a monopoly for carrying people in the streets of London. In 1805, however, licences were obtained for nine cabriolets, which thereupon started to run. In these two passengers could be carried, and the driver sat side by side with his fares. They were not a great success. In the first place they were not allowed except in certain areas, and in the second passengers did not apparently appreciate the close proximity of the driver. A number of years passed before they either increased in numbers or caught the public fancy. But in 1823, the Mr. Davies who had designed the cab-phaeton built twelve new cabriolets, which were put on to the streets for hire at the end of April. " ' Cabriolets,' runs a newspaper account, * were, in honour of His Majesty's birthday, introduced to the public this [April 23rd] morning. They are built to hold two persons inside besides the driver (who is partitioned off from his company), and are furnished with a book of fares for the use of the public, to prevent the possibility of imposition. These books will be found in a pocket hung inside the head of the cabriolet. The fares are one-third less than hackney-coaches.' " These new cabs, painted yellow, had one novel feature which must have astonished the inhabitants, for the driver's seat was a rather comical affair at the side — entirely outside the hood. In this way privacy was ensured, particularly if the curtains in front of the hood 246 CARRIAGES AND COACHES were drawn together. " The hood," says Mr. Moore,^ "strongly resembled a coffin standing on end, and earned for the vehicle the nickname of * coffin-cab.' " Cruik- shank's picture of one of these, to illustrate a Sketch by Boz, shows the curious shape of the hood very well. In a short while these cabriolets became popular — there were over one hundred and fifty of them in 1830 — particularly with the younger generation. A verse of a then popular song mentions them : — " In days of old when folks got tired, A hackney-coach or a chariot was hired ; But now along the streets they roll ye In a shay with a cover called a cabrioly,^^ which hints at a slightly incorrect pronunciation 1 But in a short while the cockney found it easier to say caby did so, and has done so ever since. Dickens describes these cabs in his essay on the London streets : — " Cabs, with trunks and band-boxes between the drivers' legs and outside the apron, rattle briskly up and down the streets on their way to the coach-offices or steam-packet wharfs ; and the cab-drivers and hackney-coachmen who are on the stand polish up the ornamental part of their dingy vehicles — the former wondering how people can prefer ' them wild beast cari- wans of homnibuses, to a riglar cab with a fast trotter,' and the latter admiring how people can trust their necks into one of * them crazy cabs, when they can have a 'spec- table 'ackney cotche with a pair of 'orses as von't run away with no vun ' ; a consolation unquestionably founded on fact, seeing that a hackney-coach horse never was known to run at all, * except,' as the smart cabman in front of the rank observes, * except one, and he run back'ards.' " 1 Omnibuses and Cabs. The Coffin-Cab (From a Dravfing by Cruikjhanli) Lo7ido?i Cab of 1823, 2^//y6 Curtains drawn (From " Omnibuses and Cabs "^ INVENTIONS GALORE 247 There is another sketch of Dickens which merits quotation here. The two-wheeled cabs were, ot course, soon superseded by others of more modern appearance, and Dickens speaks of the last of the cab-drivers and his particular cab, with a few instructions upon riding in it. This cabriolet " was gorgeously painted — a bright red ; and wherever we went. City or West End, Paddington or Holloway, North, East, West, or South, there was the red cab, bumping up against the posts at the street corners, and turning in and out, among hackney-coaches, and drays, and carts, and waggons, and omnibuses, and contriving by some strange means or other, to get out of places which no other vehicle but the red cab could ever by any possibility have contrived to get into at all. Our fondness for that red cab was unbounded. How we should have liked to have seen it in the circle at Astley's ! . . . " Some people object to the exertion of getting into cabs, and others object to the difficulty of getting out of them ; we think both these are objections which take their rise in perverse and ill-conditioned minds. The getting into a cab is a very pretty and graceful process, which, when well performed, is essentially melodramatic. First, there is the expressive pantomime of every one of the eighteen cabmen on the stand, the moment you raise your eyes from the ground. Then there is your own pantomime in reply — quite a little ballet. Four cabs immediately leave the stand, for your especial accommodation ; and the evolutions of the animals who draw them are beautiful in the extreme, as they grate the wheels of the cabs against the curb-stones, and sport playfully in the kennel. You single out a particular cab, and dart swiftly towards it. One bound, and you are on the first step ; turn your body lightly round to the right, and you are on the second ; bend gracefully beneath the reins, working round to the left at the same 248 CARRIAGES AND COACHES time, and you are in the cab. There is no difficulty in finding a seat : the apron knocks you comfortably into it at once, and off you go. " The getting out of a cab is, perhaps, rather more complicated in its theory, and a shade more difficult in its execution. We have studied the subject a good deal, and we think the best way is to throw yourself out, and trust to chance for alighting on your feet. If you make the driver alight first, and then throw your- self upon him, you will find that he breaks your fall materially. In the event of your contemplating an offer of eightpence, on no account make the tender, or show your money, until you are safely on the pavement. It is very bad policy attempting to save the fourpence. You are very much in the power of a cabman, and he considers it a kind of fee not to do you any wilful damage. Any instruction, however, in the art of getting out of a cab is wholly unnecessary if you are going any distance, because the probability is that you will be shot lightly out before you have completed the third mile. *' We are not aware of any instance on record in which a cab-horse has performed three consecutive miles without going down once. What of that ? It is all excitement. And in these days of derangement of the nervous system and universal lassitude, people are con- tent to pay handsomely for excitement ; where can it be procured at a cheaper rate .'' " Thomas Hood also mentions both hackney-coaches and cabs in one of his comic poems. Conveyancing. " O, London is the place for all In love with loco-motion ! Still to and fro the people go Like billows of the ocean ; Machine or man, or caravan, Can all be had for paying, When great estates, or heavy weights, Or bodies want conveying. INVENTIONS GALORE 249 " There's always hacks about in packs, Wherein you may be shaken, And Jarvis is not always dnitih, Tho' always overtaken ; In racing tricks he'll never mix, His nags are in their last days. And slow to go, altho' they show As if they had theiryaj-^ days ! " Then if you like a single horse, This age is quite a cab-age, A car not quite so small and light As those of our Queen Mab age ; The horses have been broken ivell, All danger is rescinded, For some have broken both their kneesy And some are broken-winded." While these cabs were still running, several experi- ments were being made with patent carriages. One of these, placed on the streets for a short while, was the invention of Mr. William Boulnois. " It was a two- wheeled closed vehicle," says Mr. Moore, "constructed to carry two passengers sitting face to face. The driver sat on a small and particularly unsafe seat on the top of it, and the door was at the back. It was, in fact, so much like the front of an omnibus that it was well known as the omnibus slice. Its popular name was the back-door cab. Superior people called it a minibus. This cab was quickly followed by a very similar, although larger, vehicle invented by Mr. Harvey. It was called a duobus."" These two cabs cannot have been very comfortable ; the shafts were too short, and the know- ledge that a possibly heavy coachman was sitting just above your head seems to have militated against their success. Another cab, not wholly successful in itself, led the 250 CARRIAGES AND COACHES way to the widely popular hansom. This was a car- riage invented in 1834 by Mr. Aloysius Hansom, the architect of the Birmingham Town Hall. Here the body was " almost square and hung in the centre of a square frame." The driver, as before, sat on the roof, but had a small seat fixed there for his convenience. The doors were in front, on either side of the driver's seat. And the wheels were of a prodigious height — being seven feet six inches. Mr. Hansom, who had obviously seen one of Francis Moore's patent carriages of 1790,^ himself drove this carriage from Hinckley in Leicestershire to London, and found financial support from Mr. Boulnois. Further experiments were made — in one model you had to enter the carriage actually through the wheels, the door being in this case at the sides — and it was found that the wheels could be made considerably smaller without danger or inconvenience. Whereupon a company was formed to purchase the invention for a sum of ten thousand pounds. Hansom, however, obtained no more than three hundred, the balance being used to perfect the far from satisfactory cabs which had been placed on the streets. Such improvements as were carried out were the work of Mr. John Chapman,^ then secretary to the Safety Cab- riolet and Two-Wheel Carriage Company, who pro- duced a much safer vehicle, afterwards purchased by ^ See note on p. 192. 2 According to Mr. Moore, whose account of this matter seems per- fectly clear, the actual vehicle which proved so popular when plying the streets contained very much more of Chapman's work than of Hansom's, and, indeed, if full justice had been done, these light carriages should have come down to posterity as chapmms and not hansoms at all. On the other hand it is quite possible, that but for Hansom's work, Chapman would never have given such careful attention to this class of vehicle. INVENTIONS GALORE 251 Hansom's company. This new cab was placed on the streets in 1836, and proved such a success that it was imitated by numerous other companies. Legal pro- ceedings were instituted, but proved both expensive and not particularly successful, and the " pirate " cabs were allowed to flourish as best they could. Then, in 1836, was made the first of those four- wheeled cabs,^ which were not really cabs at all, but which will never be known by any other name. The first of these was built by the ingenious Mr. Davies. It bore superficial resemblance to the chariot. Two passengers could ride inside, and a third on the box at the coachman's side. At this date the old two-wheeled cabs were '* a source of acknowledged disgrace, of many alarming accidents, and of lamentable loss of life," and a company was formed to provide " a cheap, expedi- tious, safe, and commodious mode of conveyance in lieu of the present disgraceful and ill-conducted cabriolets." Two years later Lord Brougham was so pleased with the appearance of these new cabs that he ordered one for his own use. So was the first brougham constructed — the earliest private four-wheeled closed carriage to be drawn by a single horse. " The original brougham," says Sir Walter Gilbey,^ " differed in many particulars of design, proportion, construction, and finish from the modern carriage. The body . . . was several inches wider in front than at the back, and though both larger and heavier, was neither so comfortable nor so convenient. . . . [It] was held together by heavy, flat iron plates throughout, 1 It seems, however, that so long as ten years before one-horse cars of this form had been plying for hire in Birmingham and Liverpool. 2 Modern Carriages. Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart. London, 1905. 252 CARRIAGES AND COACHES and the front boot was connected with the front pillars by strong outside iron stays, fixed with bolts. The wheels were at once smaller in diameter and much heavier. [The carriage] carried a large guard or ' opera board ' at the back of the body to protect the occupants from risk of injury in a crush, when the pole of a car- riage behind might otherwise break through the back panel — an accident now occasionally seen in our crowded streets. Like all other carriages of the time there was a sword case in the back panel for weapons. It was painted olive green, a very fashionable colour at that period." Another hansom, the tribus, may be noticed here, though it was not invented until 1844. In this car- riage the driver's seat was at the back on a level with the roof, and the door to his left at the back — the reason of this being that the driver could open or close it without leaving his seat. Another peculiarity was the presence of five windows, two in front, one at either side, and a fifth at the back underneath the driver's seat. The tribus was the invention of Mr. Harvey, who also built a curricle tribus, for two horses, but neither was successful. The quartobus (1844) of Mr. Okey, a four-wheeled vehicle to hold four inside pas- sengers, was likewise withdrawn after a short trial. A word may here be said of the omnibus, which had been introduced in 18 19 into Paris, though not under that name, by M. Jacques Lafiitte. It was a modern outcome of the old gondola. Nine years later the modern name was given to it by M. Baudry, a retired military officer. Laffitte had rivals, and ulti- mately determined to triumph over them by building a superior vehicle. At this time one of the most cele- RocFs Patent Dioropha, 1851 Brougham, 1859 INVENTIONS GALORE 253 brated coach-builders in Paris was an Englishman, once in the Navy, named George Shillibeer. To him came Laffitte, and Shillibeer, whilst at work on the new con- veyance, conceived the idea of starting a similar one in London. Accordingly he shipped one over and ran it from Paddington to the Bank. This first omnibus of his was a long, much be-wlndowed, four-wheeled carriage with a door at the back,and not unlike a privateomnibus of to-day. A top-hatted coachman sat on a high seat in front and drove three horses abreast. This was in 18 19, and from that time, in spite of the usual opposition, these new and rather unsightly vehicles increased in numbers until there were forty or fifty routes in London alone upon which they were to be hourly seen. A song sung with great success at a time when Shillibeer was extending his operations, particularly in the direc- tion of Greenwich, whither it was proposed to run one of the new railroads, may be quoted : — " By a Joint-Stock Company taken in hand, A raih'oad from London to Greenwich is plann'd, But they're sure to be beat, 'tis most certainly clear, Their rival has got the start — George Shillibeer. " I will not for certainty vouch for the fact, But believe that he means to run over the Act Which Parliament pass'd at the end of last year, Now made null and void by the new Shillibeer. " His elegant onmis, which now throng the road, Up and down every hour most constantly load ; Across all the three bridges how gaily appear The Original Omnibus — George Shillibeer. " These pleasure and comfort with safety combine, They will neither blow up nor explode like a mine ; Those who ride on the railroad might half die with fear — You can come to no harm in the new Shillibeer. -p^ ->v f-^SF 254 CARRIAGES AND COACHES " How exceedingly elegant fitted, inside, With mahogany polished — soft cushions — beside Bright brass ventilators at each end appear, The latest improvements in the new Shillibeer. " Here no draughts of air cause a rick in the neck, Or huge bursting boilers blow all to a wreck, But as safe as at home you from all danger steer While you travel abroad in the gay Shillibeer. " Then of the exterior I safely may say There never was yet any carriage more gay, While the round-tire wheels make it plainly appear That there's none run so light as the smart Shillibeer. " His conductors are famous for being polite, Obliging and civil, they always act right, For if just complaint only comes to his ear, They are not long conductors for George Shillibeer. " It was meant that they all should wear dresses alike, But bad luck has prompted the tailors to strike. When they go to their work, his men will appear A la Fratifaise, Conductetir a Mons. Shillibeer. " Unlike the conductors by tailors opprest, His horses have all in new harness been drest : The cattle are good, the men's orders are clear, Not to gallop or race — so says Shillibeer. " That the beauties of Greenwich and Deptford may ride In his elegant omni is the height of his pride — So the plan for a railroad must soon disappear While the public approve of the new Shillibeer." Chapter the Tenth mODERN CARRIAGES " Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar Drag the slow barge, or urge the rapid car ; Or on wide waving wings expanded bear The flying chariot through the realms of air." Erasmus 'Darwin. THE year of Queen Victoria's Coronation saw the successful opening of the London and Birmingham Railway, and from that time all but a few obstinate folk recognised the fact that the horse as a necessary adjunct to cross-country travelling was doomed. For some time, indeed, certain ingenious gentlemen had been carrying out a number of experiments with self-propelled carriages. Fifteen years before, several inventors had produced cumbrous machines which, without requiring rails, were able to progress along the roads at speeds which compared favourably with those attained by the ordinary coaches. Sir Goldsmith Gurney — to mention, perhaps, the most prominent of these men — had patented a steam-carriage in 1827 which, in spite of attacks from an irate populace who feared machinery as they feared the devil, was quite successful enough to lead the enterprising Mr. Hanning to ask for, and obtain, permission to run similar machines on many of the principal roads of England. Indeed, for a short while, there seems to 255 at 256 CARRIAGES AND COACHES have been a regular service of these primitive auto- mobiles. Many people, it is true, fought shy of Gurney's boilers, which in spite of the fact that they had been " constructed upon philosophical principles " occasionally exploded. It was after such an explosion at Glasgow that Tom Hood seized the opportunity to write the following lines : — " Instead o( jourtieys, people now May go upon a Gurney, With steam to do the horses' work By power of attorney : " Tho' with a load it may explode And you may all be undone ; And find you're going up to Heaven Instead of up to London." Similarly, many people declared their intention of never patronising the railroads. Steam, however, had come to stay, and the days of coaching were already numbered. The net result of the new state of things, so far as private carriages were concerned, seems to have been that the coachbuilders set themselves to perfect the urban vehicles, which became lighter, soberer, and more various. New and less conventional " models " were constantly being exhibited, while for those who could not afford more than a single carriage adaptable bodies were devised. So you might order a vehicle which with small trouble could be entirely changed in appearance. The older dignity, moreover, was giving place to a new smartness. " Carriage people " still formed a class, but families which before had been satisfied to use such public conveyances as there had been, now drove forth in one or other of the cheaper private carriages which • i-ar MODERN CARRIAGES 257 were being constructed particularly for their convenience. The dog-cart, for instance, had become common and was undergoing various metamorphoses, and the brougham was rapidly becoming the most popular of all town vehicles. In country lanes, too, appeared the waggonette and its kind. Nothing, indeed, was quite so light as the American buggy with its shallow dish of a body and its extraordinarily thin wheels, but there was no longer that heaviness of line which gives to the older carriages what is to modern eyes such an uncomfortable appearance. So in i860 a London coach-builder could write to the American author of The World on Wheels : — "Ten years have completed a total revolution in the carriage trade in England. Not only have the Court and the nobility adopted economical habits, and insisted on cheap carriages, but they carry no luggage, as was formerly the case when carriages had to sustain great weight, both of passengers and luggage. The cumbrous Court carriages of former times are being gradually abolished, and instead of the rich linings, laces, fringes, and elaborate heraldry usual to the carriages of the nobility, light vehicles, furnished only with a crest, are used. The changes in construction, and consequent depreciation of stock, were a heavy blow to the master coachbuilders ; many of the large houses must have lost, in this manner, from ten to twenty thousand pounds. The trade, having recovered from this blow, is in a more healthy state. The favourite carriages in England at this time were waggonettes, sociables. Stanhope and mail phaetons, basket phaetons and landaus." I may speak first of the state or " dress " carriages. " These vehicles," says Thrupp, " had long passed the period in which beautiful carving and elegant painting R ST. *s \t^~- 258 CARRIAGES AND COACHES had been used to disguise, as far as possible, the clumsy state carriages of the eighteenth century. Ever since the building of the Irish Lord Chancellor's state coach by Hatchett or Baxter in 1790, coachbuilders had endeavoured to produce a graceful outline of body, of a fair size no larger than was necessary ; the C-springs had been made of a perfect curve, the perch followed the sweeps of the body, the carving was reduced to a moderate amount, the ornamental painting was confined to the stripes upon the wheels, and the heraldic bearings of the owners of the carriages were beautifully emblazoned on the panels. For further ornament they relied on plated work in brass or silver round the body and on loops and wheel hoops. In every capital of Europe such carriages had superseded the old style, and London and Paris had supplied other countries with most of these state carriages." At the Queen's Coronation in 1838, Londoners had a good opportunity of seeing these dress carriages, a number of which early in the day were lined up in Bird- cage Walk. Most of these belonged to the various ambassadors. The one which excited the widest admiration belonged to Marshal Soult — a French-built carriage, originally built for one of the Royal family. Thrupp describes it. "The body had four upper quarter glasses, with a very elegant deep and pierced cornice of silver round the roof; there were four lamps with large coronets on the tops, and the coach bore a coronet on the roof also. The colouring of the painting was a lovely blue, such as was then called Adelaide blue ; ^ ^ Bridges Adams has an amusing passage on the question of colour. He had his own ideas upon the best colours to use on a carriage body. " For bright sunny days," he thinks " the straw or sulphur yellow is very brilliant and beautiful ; but for the autumnal haze, the rich deep orange •-■'>s:y. s ^^ Q »V) ^ "« =: !~- o l> ==5 "1 C5 '"-H ^ fe: !^ Q •-^ j^ CO '^ c*q ^ ^ MODERN CARRIAGES 259 this had been varnished with white spirit varnish, and seemed almost transparent in lustre. The whole coach was ornamented with silver and was finished in great taste." Other particulars of these carriages are to be found in the contemporary newspaper reports. We are told of the enormous prices paid. Count StrogonofF purchased for £1600 the carriag^e which had originally been built at a cost of ;;^3000 by the Duke of Devon- shire for his state visit to St. Petersburg. Another ambassador, finding that it was too late to buy a carriage, hired one from one of the Sheriff's at a cost of £2^0 for the occasion, which strikes one as an excessive price even for Coronation Day. Modern state carriages retain all their former magnificence with little if any of the old cumbersome and unnecessary ornament. One of the finest examples of this kind of carriage is the state landau built for King Edward and used by him in the Coronation procession. " This magnificent example of the coachbuilder's art," says Sir Walter Gilbey, " is over eighteen feet long. hue conveys the most agreeable sensations. The greens used are of innumerable tints, commencing with the yellowish olive, and gradually darkening till they are barely distinguishable from black. Neither apple green, grass green, sea green, nor any green of a bluish tint, can be used in carriage painting with good effect as a ground colour ; but in some species of light carriages a pleasing effect may be produced for summer by the imitation of the variegated grasses." Quite a poetical idea ! " Blues," he continues, " were formerly principally used as a ground colour for bodies, to contrast with a red carriage and framework. Of late very dark blues have been used as a general ground colour, and when new they are very rich, being a glazed or partially transparent colour ; but they very soon become worn and faded, the least speck of dust disfiguring them. Blue is also a cold colour, and while it is unfitted for summer by reason of its easy soiling, it is unpleasant in winter, owing to its want of warmth." •26o CARRIAGES AND COACHES The body is hung upon C-springs by strong braces covered with ornamentally stitched morocco ; each brace is joined with a massive gilt buckle with oak leaf and crown device. Between the hind springs is a rumble for two footmen ; there is no driving seat, as the carriage is intended to be drawn only by horses ridden postilion. The panels are painted in purple lake considerably brighter than is usual in order to secure greater effect ; marking the contours of the body and the outlines of the rumble are mouldings in wood carved and gilt, the design being one of overlapping oak leaves. " The door panels, back and front panels, bear the Royal Arms with crown, supporters, mantle, motto, helmet, and garter. On the lower quarter panel is the collar of the Order of the Garter, encircling its star and surmounted by the Tudor crown. Springing in a slow, graceful curve from the underpart of the body over the forecarriage is a 'splasher' of crimson patent leather. Ornamental brass lamps are carried in brackets at each of the four corners of the body. " As regards the interior of this beautiful carriage, it is upholstered in crimson satin and laces which were woven in Spitalfields ; the hood is lined with silk, as better adapted than satin for folding. The rumble is covered with crimson leather. It is to be observed that with the exception of the pine and mahogany used for the panels, English-grown wood and English-made materials only have been used throughout, "While less ornate than the wonderful 'gold coach' designed by Sir William Chambers and Cipriani in 1761, .f- the new state landau, in its build, proportions, and "]4 adornment, is probably the most graceful and regal •i. vehicle ever built." ^ Other English state carriages hardly less successfully designed have been made for the Lord Mayor of London (1887), for Sir Marcus Samuel, when holding Dress Coach George V^s State Carriage (From a Photograph) MODERN CARRIAGES 261 that position in 1902-3, for the Sheriffs, and for various Indian Princes. Coming to less pretentious vehicles, we may briefly consider in the first place the coach proper. At the time of Queen Victoria's Coronation, coaches of the old pattern were, of course, still being constructed. There is in possession of Messrs. Holland and Holland a mail-coach built by Waude, one of the best-known coach-builders of that time, which is typical of the period. This, says Mr. Charles Harper, "is substantially and in general lines as built in 1830. The wheels have been renewed, the hind boot has a door at the back, and the interior has been relined ; but other- wise it is the coach that ran when William IV" was King. It is a characteristic Waude coach, low-hung, and built with straight sides, instead of the bowed-out type common to the productions of Vidler's factory. It wears, in consequence, a more elegant appearance than most coaches of that time ; but it must be con- fessed that what it gained in the eyes of the passers-by it must have lost in the estimation of the insides, for the interior is not a little cramped by those straight sides. The guard's seat on the ' dickey ' — or what in earlier times was more generally known as the ' back- gammon-board ' — remains, but his sheepskin or tiger- skin covering, to protect his legs from the cold, is gone. The trap-door into the hind boot can be seen. Through this the mails were thrust and the guard sat throughout the journey with his feet on it. Immediately in front of him were the spare bars, while above, in the still remaining case, reposed the indispensable blunderbuss. The original lamps in their reversible cases remain.- There were four of them — one on either forequarter," and one on either side of the fore boot, while a smaller one hung from beneath the footboard, just above the 262 CARRIAGES AND COACHES wheelers. The guard had a small hand lamp of his own to aid him in sorting his small parcels. The door panels have apparently been repainted since the old days, for although they still keep the maroon colour character- istic of the mail-coaches, the Royal Arms are gone, and in their stead appears the script monogram in gold, V.R." It is the coach which of all vehicles has least changed its appearance in the last hundred years. The drag of to-day and the old coach just described differ from one another only in a few minor details of construction. The reason for this is not far to seek. " The brief * Golden Age,' " says Sir Walter Gilbey, " of fast coaching saw the vehicle, of which such hard and continuous work was required, brought as near perfection as human ingenuity and craftsmanship was capable of bringing it. No effort was spared to make the mail or road-coach the best possible conveyance of its kind, and in retaining the model of a former age the modern coachbuilder con- fesses his inability to improve upon the handiwork of his progenitors." It is curious to note, by the way, that for a short time such coaches were hardly made at all, and the Report on the carriages shown at the London Exhibi- tion of 1862 speaks of the "revival of an almost obsolete carriage, the four-in-hand coach, which had taken place within a few years." This was undoubtedly due to the founding in 1856 of the Four-in-Hand Driving Club. Nor was this revival confined to England. IntheofBcial Reports upon Carriages ?it the Paris Exhibition of 1878, Mr. G. F. Budd draws attention to the fact that MODERN CARRIAGES 263 " the French have closely adhered to the English styles in the general design and shape of the bodies of their vehicles, especially in broughams . . . landaus . . . and drags. In the latter description of carriage, which has become so popular during the last few years, though it is peculiarly an English carriage, the style has been closely followed, and with such considerable success, that the French builders now appear as our formidable rivals in this branch of the manufacture," "A novelty," he continues, "in the design . . . consists in the roof being so constructed as to admit of being opened in the centre ... a cover is placed on the top of the two portions of the head thus opened, and so forms, to all appearance, an ordinary luncheon-case with the ends open : it thus serves the purpose of a table when required . . . and affords an increase of ventila- tion to those riding inside the vehicle." Similarly in America drags began to be built after the establishment of a driving club. These are identical with the English models. With regard to the other four-wheeled carriages, we have now arrived at a period when it is almost im- possible to speak at any length of each particular kind.^ For in the first place such a classification as I have used to describe the older vehicles must to a large extent break down, and in the second place, from the time 1 For full and particular accounts of all such carriages as have been constructed since the middle of last century, the reader is referred to the various trade journals. Further information is to be obtained from the Reports on carriages at the successive London and Paris Exhibitions. Here the more important differences between English, French, and Austrian carriages are clearly shown in a language which is not too technical for the ordinary reader to understand. 264 CARRIAGES AND COACHES when the great exhibitions did so much to make the manufacturers of all nations familiar with each other's work, nearly every coachbuilder of standing has pro- duced one model, if not more, peculiar to itself So, in the middle of last century, you had carriages which approximated to the barouche, yet which had been evolved indirectly from so different a vehicle as the phaeton. You saw carriages, obviously dissimilar in appearance, yet bearing, to the layman, the same name. You had new combinations of perches and springs. And carriages were being exported from one country to be improved upon the lines most suitable to the roads and tastes of another. Of all these carriages perhaps the two which deserve most mention are the landau and the victoria^ both open carriages, which can be closed at will. The landauy as I have said, had originally been a coach made to open. At the beginning of the century it had hardly been so popular as the landaulet^ but at this time it underwent several improvements at the hands of Mr. Luke Hopkinson, a celebrated coach- builder of Holborn. It was Hopkinson who first built what was known as a hriska-landau^ but he chiefly con- cerned himself not so much with the shape of the carriage-body as with the hood. He built his new landaus in such a way as to allow the hood to be folded, so that it lay horizontally at the back of the seat. At the same time the floor and the seats were raised so as to make the whole carriage a far more spacious and comfortable vehicle than had been possible when the hood could not be completely opened.^ And with the ^ This was also the case in France. MODERN CARRIAGES 265 hood entirely " down " you had practically the landau of to-day, possibly the commonest carriage on the road. Nearly every " fly " which so often is to be seen stand- ing rather forlornly outside the village station as your train thunders past is a landau modelled on Hopkin- son's designs. He was not, however, the only coach- builder whose attention was being given to this useful carriage. Of one of the new landaus built by other firms a trade journal of the day observed with some truth that *' its graceful outline and roominess " made it " the very beau-ideal of vehicular luxury." And as the years passed the landau in its several varieties in- creased in popularity. Improvements tended almost solely in the direction of lightness. The Report on the carriages at the exhibition of 1862 pays particular atten- tion to the landau. " The demand for them," it runs, "has . . . increased. They are well suited to the variable climate of the British Isles, as they can readily be changed from an open to a closed carriage and vice versa." At a later exhibition — in 1885 — the landau^ had become so popular that there was actually shown one, built for the Earl of Sefton, suited to the capabili- ties of a single horse. This was an important departure 1 There is an interesting passage in the 1878 Report which may be quoted here. " It is somewhat singular," this runs, " that while the attention of the English coachbuilders has, for the past few years, been directed to perfect an arrangement to open and close landau heads in a simple and effectual manner, the French builders have paid little or no heed to the attainment of this desideratum, but have instead adopted a plan which allows of the doors of a landau being opened when the glass is up, being first introduced by M. Kellner ... in 1866. . . . The simplest method is to have two pieces of brass, about ten inches long, in the form of a groove, for the glass frame to slide in, hinged to the upper extremities of the door pillars, and to close down on the fence rail when not required for use." 266 CARRIAGES AND COACHES from tradition which seems to have shocked some of the old-fashioned designers. "That an established house with an aristocratic connection," lamented one trade paper at the time, " should exhibit a landau for one horse would have been considered incredible twenty years ago." No doubt this was true, but people persisted in their desire for light carriages, and a one- horse landau was the natural outcome. At a later date there was a tendency to alter the shape of the body. Hitherto this had generally been angular ; now the lines became curving, the body, looked at from the side, forming the arc of a huge circle. Such a carriage was known as the canoe landau. To-day the canoe bodies, both in England and abroad, are made rather deeper than at the time of their introduction, but the square shape still persists. If there is one English vehicle which may be called the favourite carriage it is surely the landau. The earlier history of the victoria^ the landau's chief rival, is rather obscure. As I have mentioned, the once popular cab-phaetofi was still to be seen in the 'forties in many continental cities as the milord, which from a most aristocratic vehicle had descended into the realms of hackdom. An English coachbuilder, however, Mr. J. C. Cooper, saw possibilities in such a vehicle and prepared a series of designs. His drawings were scorn- fully treated in England, but " found favour in the eyes of his continental clients," who about 1845 constructed from them a four-wheeled cabriolet with seats for two. This small open carriage was copied in more than one place, particularly, it would seem, in Paris and Vienna. Whether these copies were still called milords I am not sure, but in 1856 they seem to have been described as V!- ■il* '^1 A^L^ ''"-'■^-^vi^ s «a -t~i ""^"^ ^^ ir^ 5?^ r^ -o 00 ^ -^ ?N '^s S KJ o ^ ^H •*^ Cs i^ %i
  • > St •to *^>» S ^ 'a «<» ^ c^ ■-1 "5: ■-1 ^i ^ >o ■] \ J Canoe-sha-ped Landau, i860 Drag^ i860 MODERN CARRIAGES 269 Another open carriage which remained popular until the introduction of automobiles is the phaeton. Sir Walter Gilbey mentions several varieties. Of these the largest seems to have been the mail phaeton. " It was a favourite carriage," he writes, " seventy years ago or more, and was frequently used by gentle- men for long posting journeys in England and on the Continent. In these days this carriage was always built with a perch, the undercarriage resembling that of a coach, whence its name. For a time elliptical springs were adopted, but during the last ten years the fashion- able mail phaeton has been a solid-looking square-bodied vehicle on its old undercarriage." In 1889, he also observes that a jointed perch was used, the object being "to prevent the vehicle being twisted on bad roads, and also to preserve its equi- librium under trying conditions of roads." The demi mail phaeiotij to which Sir Walter gives the credit of having ousted the ugly p£:rch high phaeton from v* public favour, " derives its names from the pecu- liar arrangement of the springs in the construction of the undercarriage." Another variety, the Beaufort phaeto?i, is large enough to carry six people, and was, in the first place, expressly designed to carry people to the meet. Yet another modification, the Stanhope phaeton, invented by the peer of that name, is smaller than the last-mentioned, and has achieved a world-wide popu- larity. "The head and apron render it suitable for winter work, and when the hood is thrown back the stanhope is an admirable vehicle for summer use . whether in town or country." The T-cart is a smaller. :_./ stanhope "with compassed rail and sticked body in -'-^'^V:- ■ 270 CARRIAGES AND COACHES front and a seat for the groom behind." Sir Walter records the fact that its greatest popularity was about 1888, after which it was supplanted by the spider phaeton — a " tilbury body on four wheels with a small seat for the groom supported on branched irons behind." It would be possible to mention half a dozen other varieties of the phaeton,^ but such a list is best rele- gated to a coachbuilder's catalogue. There is only one innovation which should not be allowed to pass un- noticed here. Many of the phaeton bodies during the 'sixties were constructed of basket-work ; indeed, Croy- don, where lived the inventor, received all the benefits which a new industry brings in its trail, but the popu- larity of these basket-carriages waned as rapidly as it had waxed — due, according to one writer, to the ridi- cule heaped upon them by Punch. A revival was attempted in 1886, and "we have a reminiscence of it in the imitation cane-work painted on the panels of many carriages " at a still later date.^ We come to the closed carriages. The brougham was undergoing about as many changes and improvements as fell to the lot of any other carriage, yet superficially it maintained much the same appearance. The coupe brougham so popular to-day is the relic of the old chariot.^ Of its several varieties the best- ^ Here, I suppose, should be included the Bridge cart, invented by Lord Abergavenny. It holds four persons on two parallel seats. " The phaeton has found particu'ar favour in France. At the Paris Exhibition in 1878 was shown a phaeton built at Rouen, which, accord- ing to the official Report, was " the finest small carriage exhibited in the French department for ingenuity and fitness for work." 2 Sir Walter Gilbey had a posting brougham built for his own use, which to an even greater extent resembled the old chariot. In this case postilions were used. MODERN CARRIAGES 271 known is, or rather was — for it is rarely, if ever, seen now — the clarence. " It was introduced," says Sir Walter, "about the year 1842 by Messrs. Laurie and Marner, of Oxford Street, and has fairly been described as " midway between a brougham and a coach." It had very curved and rather fanciful lines, seated four per- sons inside, and was entered by one step from the ground, carried the coachman and footman on a low driving seat, and was used with a lighter pair of horses than the family coach." Certain models, however, show the driver's seat to have been high, on a level, that is to say, with the roof ; and not long after the first clarence was designed, Lytton Bulwer caused to be built what was called a Surrey clarence^ which possessed a hammer- cloth. The attempt, however, to produce a miniature chariot did not succeed. Another variety, named un- comfortably the dioropha^ was shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851.^ Here the side windows would slide up and down upon a new principle, and " the whole upper part of the body from the elbow-line could be lifted from the lower, leaving a barouche body." You were shown models of this upper portion hanging rather forlornly from the roof of a coachhouse. But improvements in the landau caused the extinction of the dioropha, which does not seem to have been built after 1 " The Patent Dioropha, or two-headed carriage, combining in one a clarence or pilentum coach, complete with all its appointments ; a barouche, with folding head and three-fold knee-flap ; and an open carriage. The heads can be removed or exchanged with facility by means of a pulley attached to the ceiling of the coachhouse, aided by a counterpoise weight." Fi^e the Official Catalogue, which also gives illustrations of several Indian carriages, such as the Keroiiy the rath, a Mahratta carriage from Bengal, and a lady's carriage from Lahore — the last beinga four-wheeled conveyance covered with scarlet and crimson cloth, and shut in with thick, curtains. 272 CARRIAGES AND COACHES 1875. The amemftony invented by a Mr. Kesterton, was a smaller form of this carriage. The one-horse "growler" or "four-wheeler," by the way, which still wanders up and down the streets of London, is the lineal descendant of the clarence. Of the more unconventional four-wheeled carriages, the waggonette seems to have been introduced about 1845 ^y the Prince Consort after a German model, though one writer gives the credit of the design to the Prince himself. Here, as every one knows, the seats faced each other at right-angles to the driver's seat, the door being at the back. At first they were built very large — to carry out the original intention of providing a family carriage which should really be worthy of the name. Afterwards smaller models were produced, and proved equally popular. "The principle of riding side- ways," remarks Thrupp, " was not new. The Irish car, the four-wheeled Inside car of the Westmorland dis- trict, the old Break, and the Omnibus all contributed to the design of the modern vehicle." A few particular varieties may be mentioned. The now forgotten ■perithrony a Suffolk invention, was a waggonette in which the driving seat was bisected down its centre, so as to allow a passenger entering from the back to reach the front seat. The Portland waggonette^ built for the Duke of Portland in 1893, was a large carriage with a folding hood. Another carriage of the kind with a folding leather hood was presented by Lord Lonsdale to the King and Queen at the time of their wedding. This is known as a Lonsdale waggonette. " Lord Lons- dale," remarks Sir Walter Gilbey, "allowed his name to be given to this device under the impression that he was MODERN CARRIAGES 273 the first to originate a head of this description ; but his claim for invention of it was disputed at the time. Mr. Robertson stated that he had built such a waggonette so far back as 1864; Mr. Kinder had built one in 1865 ; and Messrs. Morgan stated that they had turned out a similar vehicle before the year 1870." A very large waggonette, the brake^ is a common enough object to-day, and is built in various forms. Sometimes a second seat is placed directly behind and parallel to the driver's seat. In some models these seats stretch back throughout the length of the carriage, in which case it is a ckar-d-ba7ic. Awnings, permanent or temporary, are generally provided. In America the commonest four-wheeled carriage is the light wagon or buggy, a name given in England to a light two-wheeled, single-seated cart (also called a sulky^) towards the end of the eighteenth century. The buggy has one seat fixed on to a long, shallow tray ; the wagon is similar, but has two or more seats. " These American waggons," says Thrupp, " were modelled from the old German waggon, but they have been so much improved as to be scarcely recognised. The distinctive feature of the German waggon was a light, shallow tray, suspended above a slight perch carriage on two grasshopper springs placed horizontally and parallel with and above the front and hind axle- tree ; on the tray one or two seats were placed, the whole was light and inexpensive, and well adapted to a new, rough country without good roads. These waggons may still be found in Germany and Switzerland. . . . " American ingenuity was lavished upon these waggons, * The only sulky now to be seen in this country is the trotting carriage used in races — a mere skeleton. See also p. 210. 274 CARRIAGES AND COACHES and they have arrived at a marvel of perfection in light- ness. The two grasshopper springs have been replaced with two elliptical springs. The perch, axle-trees, and carriage timbers have been reduced to thin sticks. The four wheels are made so slender as to resemble a spider's web ; in their construction of the wheels the principle of the patent rim used in England in 1790 has been adopted. Instead of five, six, or seven felloes to each wheel, there are only two, of oak or hickory wood, bent to the shape by steam. The iron-work of the American buggy is very slender, yet composed of many pieces, and, in order to reduce the cost, these pieces of iron are mostly cast, not forged, of a sort of iron less brittle than our cast iron. . . . The weight of the whole waggon is so small that one man can lift it upon its wheels again if accidentally upset, and two persons of ordinary strength can raise it easily from the ground. The four wheels are nearly of the same height, and the body is suspended centrally between them. There are no futchels ; the pole or shafts are attached to the front axle-tree bed, and the front of the pole is carried by the horses just as they carry the shafts ; the splinter-bar and whipple-trees are attached to the pole on swivels. Some are made without hoods and some with hoods. These are made so that the leather of the sides can be taken off and rolled up, and the back leather removed, rolled, or fixed at the bottom, a few inches away from the back, the roof remaining as a sunshade. . . . " The perfection to which the American buggy or waggon has been carried, and every part likely to give way carefully strengthened, is marvellous. Those made by the best builders will last a long time without repair. The whole is so slender and elastic that it * gives' — to use a trade term — and recovers itself at any obstacle. The defect in English eyes of these carriages consists in the difficulty of getting in or out by reason of the height of the front wheel, and its proximity to the hind wheel Modern American Station Wagon Modern American Buggy Both from Studebakcr's ( Chicago) Catalogue B*N-^-. MODERN CARRIAGES 275 — it is often necessary partly to lock round the wheel to allow of easy entrance. There is also a tremulous motion on a hard road which is not always agreeable. It is not surprising that, with the great advantages of extreme lightness, ease, and durability, and with lofty wheels, the American waggons travel with facility over very rough roads, and there is a great demand for them in our colonies. It must be remembered that the price is small, less than the price of our gigs and four-wheeled dog-carts." Indeed, the tourist in America will come away with the impression that there is hardly a family in the conti- nent which does not possess at least one buggy or waggon. They can be driven, too, at a very great pace. In this connection it is interesting to notice that it was a buggy which Lord Lonsdale selected in order to carry out his great driving feat in 1891, when " he undertook to drive four stages of five miles within an hour, using for the first three stages one, a pair, a team, and riding postilion in the fourth." There are, of course, many varieties, several invented after Thrupp wrote the above account. Of these some are peculiar to a particular State, while others seem to be in general use throughout the continent. In Chicago, . for instance, and other towns of the middle west, the"!. commonest buggy seems to be the bike zuagon, of whic^ •a variety is the cut-under bike zcagotty where the tray is double — the seat forming a bridge between its two parts. Stanhopes and phaetons are also manufactured in America, though on a much lighter scale than in England. Another popular American carriage is the surrey y which has the two-seated arrangements of the larger waggons, but is without the tray. The station zvagoUy very popu- 276 CARRIAGES AND COACHES lar in New England, resembles the old English chariot, and differs from it only in its driving seat, which is on a level with the inside seat and directly against the front lines of the carriage-body. This is one of the most comfortable carriages in the country. The buckboardy even slenderer than the buggy, is hardly more than the skeleton of a carriage, but seems none the less popular on that account. The barge is the name given in Massa- chusetts to a two-seated waggon, and the word has a curious origin. It seems probable that it is a relic of the days when in that part of the country the boat sleighs used in the winter were put upon wheels in the summer. At a later date ordinary waggons were used for summer traffic, but the old name stuck. And I dare say there are a dozen or more local names of some peculiarity in other parts of America which to-day are given to carriages not in the least like those to which the name was originally applied. Coming to the two-wheeled carriages, we find similar changes to those described above showing themselves. The old curricle, for instance, is now but rarely seen, its place being taken by one or other of the dog-carts. What was probably the most fashionable of these --carriages during the early Victorian era is now practi- cally extinct. This was the cabriolet^ rather different in appearance from the vehicles of that name which had plied for hire but a few years before, yet built on the same principles as the earliest French gigs. " They were greatly improved," wrote Mr. G. N. Hooper in 1899,^ "about fifty years ago by the well- ^ Suspension of Road Carriages. A Paper read before the Institute of British Carriage Manufacturers at York. 1899. MODERN CARRIAGES 277 known Count D'Orsay and the late Mr. Charles B. Courtney, who greatly refined the outlines and propor- tions, making them lighter, more compact, and far more stylish. They became par excellence the equipage of the jeune iioblesse^ and no more stylish two-wheel carriages for one horse were driven for many years while they were fashionable. A large, well-bred horse was a necessity, and this the cabriolet generally had. " The groom, or ' tiger ' as he was then called, was a special London product : he was produced in no other city, British or foreign ; all the genuine tigers hailed from London. His age varied from fifteen to twenty- five. Few there were that were not perfect masters of their horses, were they never so big. In shape and make he was a man in miniature, his proportions perfect, his figure erect and somewhat defiant: his coat fitted as if it had been moulded on him ; his white buckskin breeches were spotless ; his top-boots perfection ; his hat, with its narrow binding of gold or silver lace, and brims looped up with gold or silver cord, brilliant with brushing, was worn jauntily. As he stood at his horse's head, ready to receive his noble master, you might expect him to say, ' My master is a duke, and I am responsible for his safety.' " There is little enough to say of the gigs. The curricle, as I have said, is now rarely seen, though Sir Walter Gilbey mentions a particular one introduced- about 1883 " which differed materially from the vehicle formerly known by that name. It consisted of a cabriolet, or whisky body, having an * ogee ' or chair back, the body being suspended by braces from C or S springs upon the undercarriage. Its peculiarity lay in the use of long lancewood shafts, set so far apart that the pole could be placed between them ; the saddle-bar being used to support the pole, the shafts, it would 278 CARRIAGES AND COACHES seem, were somewhat unnecessary." The Cape cart brought into England from South Africa is a two- wheeled vehicle of this class with a pole in place of shafts, and " the sides being framed so as to present three panels." " At the back," says Sir Walter, *' was built in a large box for provisions, the full width and depth of the cart, the back seat forming the lid ; the tail-board was used only as a foot-rest. An adjustable centre seat with back- rest could be used so as to provide accommodation for six passengers. A white canvas tilt on wooden hoops with sunblinds at the sides, which could be strapped up when not wanted, covered the whole body of the cart." And similar to the Cape cart is the Whitechafel cart, which brings me to a brief consideration of the dog-carts. As originally designed, the dog-cart seems to have been built high, and, as its name implies, for the purpose of carrying dogs. Such a vehicle would seat four, a roomy, comfortable trap " with space under the seats, where a brace of pointers or other dogs could lie at ease." As I have said in a preceding chapler, the sides of the cart " were made with Venetian slats to provide ventilation." Such a cart, however, proved so agreeable that no long time elapsed before its original purpose was lost sight of, and it became one of the commonest of country carriages. Built on a small scale it was admir- ably suited for pony or cob. Numerous varieties exist. In the tandem cart, as generally constructed, the driver's seat is high — the only cart, indeed, of the kind to maintain any height at all. In the Ralli cart two seats are placed back to back, the foot-rest to the latter closing on the MODERN CARRIAGES 279 body when required. (Built somewhat on the lines of the ralli, by the way, is the Indian tonga, " a rather low, hooded vehicle . . . furnished for draught by a pair of ponies on the curricle principle with pole and bar.") The Battlesden, Bedford, and Malvern carts are other varieties. More popular, perhaps, than any of these is the governess cart, which, while really in a class by itself, may be mentioned here. This is a low and particularly safe carriage, in which the seats are placed at the sides, as in the waggonette, and the door is at the back. An improvement on the governess cart, though not nearly so popular, is the Princess car, first designed in 1893. Here the back door is dispensed with, the entrance being in front. " The driving seat is arranged on a slide, whereby it can be moved forwards or backwards to adjust the balance ; and it also enables the driver to sit facing the horse instead of sitting sideways as in the governess cart." In the last chapter I pointed out the chief varieties of public carriages. Of these the hansom and the omnibus have undergone considerable changes. The hansom was enormously improved by Mr. Forde, a Wolverhampton coachbuilder, in 1873, when the Society of Arts offered a prize for the best two-wheeled public conveyance. Mr. Forde's carriage was much lighter than the older hansoms, and " its merits attracted the appreciative attention of foreigners, whereby an export trade became established." Four years later another vehicle, the two- wheeled hroughain, was introduced, but did not meet with success. The Floyd hansom of 1885 showed other improvements, and for the first time the hansom became 28o CARRIAGES AND COACHES a private carriage. Here the " side windows were made to open, as were two small windows at the back of the cab." For a short while, indeed, the private hansom was one of the smartest of gentlemen's carriages. Then in 1889 was shown another hansom with a movable hood. This was wholly unsuccessful, but the Arlington cab, a Dorchester invention of this time, may still be seen in provincial towns to which the taximeter petrol cab has not yet reached. The chief peculiarity about this hansom is its doors, which, instead of reaching only half-way up and being constructed at a backward angle, reach from door to roof and are upright — thus giving a more spacious interior. These doors are " fitted with sliding glasses in the top part after the manner of an ordinary brougham door." A brougham hansom was ,;. introduced in 1887. "This afforded sitting-room inside for three or four; it was entered at the back, and when the door was shut, a seat across it was so arranged that there was no possibility of the door opening till the occupants' weight was off the seat. The driver's seat was in front, on the roof of the vehicle." A four- wheeled hansom was also seen in London some twenty- five years ago. Here the driver's seat was behind the carriage on a level with the roof. "Everybody knows," remarks Sir Walter Gilbey, "that the hansom, by reason of its steadiness, is an exceedingly comfortable conveyance ; there is no vehicle that runs more easily, particularly when the load is truly balanced." But in spite of such improvements as rubber tyres and patent windows, the hansom seems doomed. Shillibeer's huge omnibuses were succeeded by smaller MODERN CARRIAGES 281 vehicles of similar construction. For some years no passengers wefre carried upon the roof except one or two beside the driver. Then in 1849 ^" "outside seat down the centre of the roof was added," to reach which you had to climb an iron ladder. This continued until 1890, when the much more convenient "garden-seats" were substituted, and a curved flight of steps took the place of the rather dangerous ladder. Private omni- buses were first constructed about 1867. They con- tained a rumble at the back for the footman, but this was speedily dispensed with. As built to-day, they are of various sizes. One other carriage may be mentioned, and then I am done. This is the Irish car. Here, as in the larger bian^ the seats are arranged back to back and . .. ^ sideways. " The wheels are very low and are concealed |, as far as the axle-boxes, or farther, by the panel of the footboard, which panel is hinged to the end of the trajy either side of which forms the seat, to allow of its being turned up when not in use." Occasionally there is a well between the seats for small packages. In private cars of this kind there is a small seat in front for the driver, but this is rarely to be found in the public vehicles. The width of the Irish car is enormous, and occasionally leads the neophyte into trouble. Out- side Ireland, I believe, the car is not seen. " Walking in the pleasant environs of Paris," wrote Mr. H. C. Marillier some seventeen years ago, in an article entitled The Automobile : A Forecast^ " or even further afield, upon the broad routes nationales of Charente and La Beauce, it is no uncommon thing to meet on a summer's day a little open vehicle flitting 282 CARRIAGES AND COACHES along without apparent means of motion, upon noise- less rubber-shod wheels, or panting forth a gentle warn- ing from a square-shaped box in front. Two, and sometimes three, persons are seated in it, one of whom drives by means of a handle. To stop or to start again requires the turn of a screw or the push of a pedal. Such, in its most accomplished and most graceful form, is the automobile. To see it pass at racing speed — some of these little machines can spurt at twenty miles an hour — takes one's breath away at first. The apparition is uncanny." In another passage he speaks of these horseless carriages as playing " a prominent part as the natural successors of the hansom cab and the omnibus," and draws what must then have been a fanciful picture of a city upon whose roads there would be seen almost as many horseless as horse-driven vehicles. To-day we know what has happened since these words were written. The hansom is a rarity, except during a strike of petrol-car drivers. The omnibus is a speedy machine with a powerful engine. The growler persists, but only for the benefit of those with much luggage or for those afraid of the internal combustion engine, that extra- ordinary discovery which has revolutionised locomotion even more than did steam eighty years ago. With such facts as these it would be easy to prophesy a total extinction of horse-driven vehicles except for purely ornamental purposes. Yet I believe that there may be a reaction in favour of a more leisurely means of loco- motion. As yet it is impossible to be truly dignified in even the most gorgeously appointed motor-car. " Carriage people " no longer form a class, and the old coachbuilding firms which have not followed the times MODERN CARRIAGES 283 and shown one or other make of automobile in their rooms are few in number. Mr. Marillier, moreover, in the article just quoted, speaks of "that ideal future when life shall consist of sitting in a chair and pressing buttons " ; but the horse is not yet extinct, and although it is not probable that any horse-carriages of an entirely new type will be constructed, 1 imagine that the older forms will persist, at any rate, for the next century or two. Indeed, to my mind, there must always be the man who will prefer the reins to the driving wheel. And who can blame him for the choice ? '«■«■ INDEX Indi ex Abergavenny, Marquis of, 270 n. Ackermann, William, 230, 234 Adams, T. G., 232 Adams, William Bridges, 19, 49, 62, 65, 154, 212, 214 n., 227-230, 232-236, 258 n. Addison,' Joseph, 151 adometer, 115 Adrianople, 152 Africa, South, 278 Agrippina, 33 Alchemist, The, 75 Aldersgate Street, 190 Alexander and Campaspe, 5 8 Alexander of Parma, 67 Alexander Severus, 35 Alexander the Great, 27 Alexandria, 27 All sorts of Wheel Carriage, Improved, 166 OLfia^a, 26, 27 Amelia, Princess, 104 amempton, 272 America, North, 36, 140, 205, 220, 221, 225, 236, 263 America, South, 20, 189, 236 Amsterdam, 225, 226 Andersen, Henry, 90 Andrews, coachbuilder, 267 Anne, wife of Richard II, 49 Anne, Queen, 154, 174 , Anne, Social Life in the Reign of Queen, 1 58 n. Anne Boleyn, 54 Annual Register, 214 Anstice, J., 205 Antioch, 29 Antiochus, 40 n. o.vTv^, 25 Antwerp, 68, ito 287 288 CARRIAGES AND COACHES a;njvjj, 26-28 Apollo, or a Problem Solved, 162 Appian Way, 28 arabay 40 Arabia, 40 arc era, 29 Arlington cab, 280 ap/xa, 25, 26, 29 ap[j.dfia^a, 26, 27, 29 Arnot, Hugh, 102 Arundel, Earl of, 76, 77 Ashby, Lady, 120 Ashton, John, 158 Asia, 107, 108 Assyrian chariot. See chariot Athens, 36 Ausonius, 31 Australia, 223 Austria, 51, 232 automobile, 256, 269, 282 Automobile : a Forecast, The, 281 axles, movable, 256, 269, 282 Babylon, 27 back-door cab, 249 Bailey, Captain, 88 Balack, Donald, 105 barcos de tier r a, 20 barge, 276 Barker, Edward, 74 barouche, 206, 229, 230, 264, 271 n. barouchet, 230 Barrow, John, 107 Bartholomew Fair, 75 Baskerville, John, 191 basket, the, 168, 169. See also under boot basterna, 32, 37, 52 Bath, 61, 103, 104 Battles den cart, 279 Baudry, M., 252 Baxter, coachbuilder, 258 Baynardes Castle, 77 beading, 1 20 n. Beatrice of Anjou, 50 Beau's Ideal, The, 160 Beckmann, 65, 116 INDEX 289 Bedford cart, 279 Belgium, 35 Bellasis, Richard, 57 Belvoir, 71 benna, 32, 35 Bennet, Mr., 221 Bennett, coachbuilder, 235 Berlin, 118 n. berlin, 62, 109, 118-121, 139, 141, 175, 176, 216; KorfF berline, 207 f/ seq. berlina, 1 1 8 n. berline. See berlin berlin got ^ 141 bian, 239, 281 Bianconi, 239 Bible, Dictionary of the, 22 n. bike wagon, 275 ; cut-under bike wagon, 275 Birch, Thomas, 116 n. Bird-Cage Walk, 258 Birmingham, 42, 190, 191, 250, 251 n., 255 birotum, 32 n. Blackfriars, 82 Blackheath, 115-117 Blackwood^ 5 Magazine, 238 Bligh family. See Darnley Blount. See Blunt Blunt, Colonel [Sir Harry, of Wicklemarsh], 115, 117, 118, 126 Bodger, 189 Bondman, The, 8 7 n. Boonen, William, 71, 72 boot, first mention of, 73 ; metamorphosed into basket, 74; 84, in, 114, 168, 21S, 229, 234, 235 Boston, U.S.A., 221 Boulnois, William, 249, 250 Boulogne, 70 Bourn, Daniel, i8o, 181, 185 brake, 273 Breasted, J. H., 21 brewer's cart, 96 Britain, 30, 39 British Museum, 48 britzschka (briska, brisker, brisky), 232-234; briska-chariot, 229, 232, 233; briska-phaeton, 229; briska-landau, 264 broad'fvaggons, 198 Broderithus, Stephanus, 65 brouette (wheelbarrow), 99, 100, 108, 139 T 290 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Brougham, Lord, 251 brougham^ 251, 252, 257, 262, 271 ; posting-brougham, 27011.; tzvo- zoheeled brougham, 279; brougham-hansom, 280 Brouncker, Lord, 117 Browne, Sir Thomas, 73, 121, 221 Brussels, 67, 1 10 buckboard, 276 Buckingham, Duke of, 61, 86-88, 91, 107, 153 Buckingham, Earl of, 49 Budd, G. F., 262 bugg^, 221, 236, 257, 273-275 Bulkeley, Sir Richard, 142, 143, 155 Bulwer Lytton, 271 Bunbury, H., 199 Burgh, Elizabeth de, Lady Clare, 48 cab, hackney. See cabriolet cab-phaeton, 229, 233, 245, 266 cabriolet, 139, 170, 198, 199, 221, 234, 244 et seq., 266, 276 ; cabriolet de place, 244 Caesar, Julius, 29, 36 Caesarius, 29 Calais, 172 calash (calesh, caliche), 109, 140 et seq., 154, 155, 206, 221 calesse {calesso), 35, 140 caned zvhiskey, 214 Canterbury, no Cape cart, 278 Capua, 28 Caricature His tor "^ of the Georges, 198 n, Carinthia, 121 Carlyle, Thomas, 207, 209 carpentum, 31, 33, 34 carretta, 50 carriage, early use of the word, 45 ; early English carriage described, 47 ; Chinese, 38, 107 ; Dacian, 37 Carriage Builder'' s and Harness Maker'' s Art Journal, 72, 158 carriage-match, 188 carriole, 35, 69, 140, 224 carroccio, 50 n. carroch {caroch, carroach, carroche), 64, 80, 83 carrosse, 69 ; carosse a cinq sous, it,6 et seq. carruca, 32, 34 ; carruca argentata, 35 ; carruca domestoria, 35 carrus, 32 n. ; carrus stabularius, 32 n. cart, 24, 81, 82, 247 ; early English cart described, 45 Castleniainc, Earl of, 123, 124; Countess of, 140 n. INDEX 291 cathedra., 37 Catherine of Aragon, 54 Catton, coach-painter, 188 Cecil, Lady, 76 Cenis, Mont, 104 Centlivre, Mrs., 160 chaer. See chare chair., sedan, 85 ^/ seq. ; introduced into England, 87 ; hackney chairs established, 87, 91 ; characteristics of chairmen, 96, 102 ; appear- ance, 99-101 ; at Bath, 104 ; persist at Edinburgh, 106 ; regulations, 1 06 ; Eastern chairs, 107; mentioned, 123, 148, 166, 173,221,222 chair, one-horse. See chaise chair s~and-ch airmen, 198 chaise, 140, 141, 147, 148, 155, 156, 170, 171, 175, 196; French chaise described, 147, 148 ; chaise a porteur, 99 ; chaise de poste, 170 Chamberlayne, William, 135 Chambers, Sir William, 185, 186, 260 Chapman, John, 250 char. See chare char-a-banc, z-j^ char-a-cote, 224 chare (car), 46, 49, 50, 52, 54, 69 charette {chariette), 49, 50, 62, 67 chariot, Hittite, 21, 23; Egyptian, 20, 22; Assyrian, 22, 24, 39; Persian, 23, 38-40 ; Grecian, 24 et seq. ; Lydian, 26 ; British, 29, 30; mentioned, 49, 54, 55, 97, iii, 120 et seq., 141, 144; Col. Blunt's chariots, w^ et seq.; Spanish, 121; Mr. Povey's, 126 J Sir Richard Bulkeley's, 142 ; chariot a L' anglaise, 147 ; the Darnley chariot, 150 et seq. ; advertisements of, 157 ; George IV's, 207 ; cost of, 210 ; Hobson's chariots, 232 ; also mentioned, 148, 150, 153, 161, 171, 175, 200, 206, 210, 221, 229, 234, 251, 270, 271, 276 chariotee, 236 Charles of Anjou, 50 — I, 86, 90, 91, III, 123 — II, 55, 61, 140 n., 148 — V, 86 — VII, of France, 64 — XII, 154 chasse maree, 159 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 49 Cheapside, 150, 192 n. cheas, 162 Chicago, 275 Chiesa, Philip de, 118 Child, Josiah, 198 292 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Chili, 20 China, 38, 79, 107 Cicero, 30, 32 Cipriani, 113, 188, 260 cisium, 31, 32 n., 139 ; cisiarii, 31 Clanwilliam, Earl of, 233 clarence, 271, 272 ; Surrey clarence, 271 Claudius, the Emperor, 36 Cleveland, John, 114 Clinker, Humphrey, 103 coach, introduction of, 56 et seq. ; women forbidden their use, 57 ; Taylor's opinion of, 59 ; first coach-and-six, 61 ; definition of, 62 ; where first made, 62 ; derivation of the word, 63 ; similar to couch, 63 ; first English coaches only carts, 64 ; appearance of early coaches, 66 ; how evolved from the waggon, 66 ; a sixteenth-century coach described, 67 ; oldest coach in existence, 68 ; introduction into England, 69 ; first "hollow, turning coach" for Queen Elizabeth, 71 ; her Dutch coach, 72; Earl of Rutland's coach, 77, 78; coach compared with cart, 8 1 ; Taylor's ride in, 84 ; hackney coaches, 88, 165, 201, 241 et seq.; proclamations concerning, 90, 125; early French coach, 1 1 1 ; size of English coaches, 1 1 1 ; oldest coaches with solid doors, 119; Roman coaches, 123; overturning of, 142 ; early Georgian coaches, 148 ; Turkish, 152 ; Russian, 153,154; Venetian, 159 ; patent coaches, 166, 217, 218 ; Spanish, 170; " frictionless " coach, 190; Baskerville's, 191; Lord Chancellor's Irish coach, 206, 207, 258 ; reasons for overcrowding, 215; nineteenth-century coach, 229; Victorian, 261 Coach and Coach Harness Makers' Company, 143 Coach and Sedan pleasantly disputhtg, 63, 92 et seq. coachee, 222 Coaches, The History 0/, 24 n. coal-carriage, 192 Coates, "Romeo," 213 Coburg, 67, 68 Cockburn, Lord, 106 cochio, 50 n. Colley, 199 Colman, J., 198 Commander, Mr., 127 Conference between . . . chariot . . . and . . . chair, -^,97 Congreve, William, 201 Connecticut, 221 Consort, Prince, 272 Constantine, 32 n. Constantinople, 29 Conveyancing, 248 INDEX 293 Cooper, Fenimore, 105 Cooper, J. C, coach-designer, 266 corbillard, 1 1 1 correo real, 170 cottri, 63 Cotzi. See Kotzee couch. See coach coucouy 169 coupe, 155, 230, 270 Courtney, C. B., 277 Covent Garden, 104 Coventry, Sir William, 132 covin us, 30 Cow Lane, 129 crane-neck perches, 119 Craven, 57 Creed, Mrs., 130 Crenan, Marquis de, 136 Croal, Thomas, 84, loi, 118 n., 143, 236, 240 Cromwell, Oliver, 11 2-1 14 Crooch, John, 92 Croune, Dr., 117 Croydon, 270 Cruikshank, George, 246 C-spring, 119 Cuba, 140, 236 Cuchey, Cambridge carrier, 63 Cumberland, George, Earl of, 59 ; Henry Clifford, Earl of, 57 Curtail a Miscellanea, gin. curricle, 199, 213, 214, 222, 234, 242, 276, 277 ; curricle tribus, 252 currus, 29 ; currm arcualus, 33 ; currus falcaius, 40 n. curtin coach, 159 Curtius, 39, 40 Cyprus, 39 Darnley, Lord, 150 Dashour, 24 Davenant, Sir William, 123 Davies, David, 233, 245, 251 decoration of carriages, 1 39 Defoe, Daniel, 102 n. Delaney, Mrs., 159 Delavel, Sir Francis, 196, 237 demi'landau, 210 demet, 235 ; the Misses, 235 Dertford, 77 294 CARRIAGES AND COACHES desobligeante, 141, 172 Dessein, M., 172 Devil is an Ass, The, 80 Devonshire, Duke of, 259 Diana of Poitiers, 69 Dickens, Charles, 234, 242, 244, 246, 247 diligence, 148, 168 ; diligence de ville, 219. See also mail-coach Diomed, 26 dioropha, 271 Bi(f>pos. See ap^a Dockwra, William, 166 . dog-can, 235, 257, 275, 276, 278 dogs used as beasts of burden, no Don, Lady, 106 Dorchester, 280 Dover, 218 Dozvn-Hall, 156 drag, 262, 263 Drake, Sir Francis, 59 driving-coach, 229 droitzschka (drosky), 224, 233 Dublin, 142, 238, 239 Duncombe, Sir Saunders, 87, 91 Dunkirk, no duobus, 249 Dupin, 99 Early Carriages and Roads, 50 n. Early Use of Carriages in England, 54 Eastzvard Hoe, 75, 79 Echoes of the Streets, 103 n. Edgeworth, Dr. Lovell, 205 Edgware, 57 Edinburgh, 90, 102, 103, 106, 144, 206 Edinburgh Almanac, The, 106 Edward III, 43, 48 Edward VI, 70 Edward VII, 259 effeminacy and carriages, 44, 56 f/ se(^. Eglinton, Earl of, 188 Egypt, 23, 24, 46 Egypt, A History of, 21 n. Eleanor, the Lady, 48 elephant carriage, 239, 240 Elgin, Earl of, 108 ; Elgin marbles, 26 Elizabeth, Queen, 71-73, 83, 86, 174 INDEX 295 Elliott, Obadiah, 205, 214, 227, 22811., 234 elliptic springs, 205 English Pleasure Carnages^ 19 n., 227 English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages^ 43 n. Entertainment at Rutland House, First Day's, 123 equirotal carriages, 237 Erichthonius, 36 E ridge cart, 270 n. Ermengarde, the Lady, 51 essedum, 29-31 ; essedum deauratum, 30 Essex, Robert, Earl of, 59 ; Countess of, 77 Eugene, Prince, 160 Evelyn, John, 87, 109, iii, 115, 116, 125, 126, 142 Expeditions to Prussia and the Holy Land, of Henry, Earl of Derby, 51 Fan tail gig, 236 Farnese, Duke Edward, 123 Felton, William, 204, 207, 210, 213, 227 Ferrara, 69 ; Duchess of, 69 Ferrers, Earl, 53 Fersen, Count, 208, 209 fiacre, go Fielding, Sir John, 201, 203 Finsbury, 92, 235 Flanders, 51, 209 ; Flemish mares and carriages, 52, 63, 83 Flandres, Anciennes Chroniques de, 50 Fleet Street, 164 Florence, 23, 140 flyy 265 Ford, Sir Richard, 129 Ford, William, 201 Forde, coachbuilder, 279 four-in-hand, 229, 262 Four-in-Hand Driving Club, 262 "four-wheeler," 89 France, 43, 62, 76, 90, 94, 121, 139, 140* U^, 15^ 165, 168, 171, 172, 177, 189, 196, 198, 219, 230 Frankfort, 65 Frederick, Duke of Saxony, 67 Frederick III, the Emperor, 65 n. Friola, 5 i Froissart, Sir John, 49, 53 galera, 169 Gauden, Sir D., 129 Gaul, 31 296 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Gautier, Theophile, 170 Gay, John, 60, 98, 102, 150 Gazetteer, The, 1 7 2 n. General Highways Act, the first, 70 Gentleman Dancing Master, The, 127 Gentleman's Magazine, 174, 176, 180, 193 George I, 159 George III, 185, 186, 188, 207 George IV, 211, 212, 267 George V, 185 Germany, 35, 66, 68, 76, 118, 147, 219, 226, 273 gharry, 40 Ghent, no Gibbon, Edward, 28, 29 gigy io7» I39-I4I* _i44» I99> 213, 214, 221, 224, 235-237, 245, 275-277 ; primitive form of, 31 Gigg, Sir Gregory, 199 Gilbey, Sir Walter, Bart., 50, 54, 113, 117, 251, 259, 262, 269-272, 277, 278, 280 Gild of the Holy Cross, 42 Gillray, James, 211, 213, 220 Ginzrot, von, 39, 66 Glasgow, 144, 256 glass for coaches and chairs, 104, 109, in, 120, 121, 131, 135, 154 glass-coach, 119, 121, 185, 207 Godalming, 149 Godelak, Walter, 43 gondola, 169, 216, 252 governess cart, 279 Gozzadini, Count, 67, 123, 140 Grammont, Chevalier de, 140 n. Grand Concern of England, The, 136 Gray, Thomas, 147, 148 Gray's-inn-lane, 197 Green, John, 165, 166 Greenwich, 253, 254 Gregory X, Pope, 50 Gresham College, 116 Griffin, Will, 127 Grosvenor Square, 197, 241 n. Gurney, Sir Goldsmith, 255, 256 Hackney, 88, 121, 127 ; derivation of the word, 88 n. Hamburg, 226 Hamilton, Duke of, 211 hammercloth, 158, 206, 229, 271 INDEX 297 Hanning, Mr., 255 Hansom, Aloysius, 250, 251 hansom-cab, 89, 99, 192 n., 250 et seq., 279, 280, 282 ; Floyd hansom, 279 ; four-zvheekd hansom, 280 Harborough, 176 Harper, Charles, 120, 135 n., 21511., 218, 261 Harrow, 57 ; Harrow School, 57 j. Harvey, Mr., 249, 252 *5 Harwich, 55, 190 Hastings, J,, 22 n. Hatchett, coachbuilder, 258 Hatton House, 77 Haussez, Baron D', 241 n. Heathcote, Sir Gilbert, 188 Heliogabalus, 82 " hell-cart," 8 1 Hengrave, 76 Henry IV, 51 Henry VI, 54 Henry VII, 96 Henry of Navarre, 84 ; his widow, 54 Herodotus, 27 Hesiod, 28 Hewer, Will, 131, 133 Hicks, Sir Elias, 92 Hieronymus, 27 Hinckley, 250 History of Great Britain, 61 n. History of Inventions, 65 History of Locomotion, 62 Hobson, Samuel, 232 Hoby, Sir Thomas, 76 Hodges, coachmaster, 157, 158 Hoefnagle, 72 Hogarth, 64 Holborn, 132, 197, 264 Holcroft, Thomas, 226 Holinshed, 54 Holland, 68, 71, 156, 226 Holland & Holland, 261 Holloway, 247 Hood, Thomas, 248, 256 Hook, Theodore, 235 Hooke, Dr. Robert, 116, 117 Hooper, G. N., 276 Hopkinson, Luke, 264, 265 298 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Hopkynson, Edward, 71 Horse and Carriage Oracle, The, 231 Hungary, 37, 51, 63-66, 68 Hunt, Leigh, 162, 206, 210, 214, 219, 242 Hutton, Catherine, 192 Hutton, William, 191 Hyde Park, 112, 115, 122, 155, 156 hwakeaou, 108 idol-car, Persian, 39 Indian carriages, early, 40 Ingleby, Colonel, 112 Ipswich, 73 Ireland, 143, 206, 214, 220, 238, 239, 281 Irish car, 281 Isabella of Spain, i 70 isinglass, or talc, used for windows, 92 Islington, 92 Italy, 31, 32, 33 n., 35, 62, no, 123, 172, 196, 235 Jacob, 21, 46 Jacobs, Joseph, coachbuilder, 157, 184 James I, 87 Japan, 108 jaunting car, Irish, 239 Jervis, John, coachman, 239 j'tn-rick-shazo, 99, 108 John, Elector of Saxony, 68 John, King, 53 Johnson, Samuel, 162, 171, 219 Jonson, Ben, 75, 79 Joseph, 21, 46 Journey across Asia, King's, 224 Journey round the World, PfeifFer's, 223 Jowermarsh, 43 Julius, Duke of Brunswick, 58 Juno, 25, 1 18 n. Jupiter, 162 Jusserand, J. J., 43, 47, 48 Kafxdpa, 27 Kamtschatka, 224 KOLvadpov, 26, 28 kangoe, 108 Kellner, M., 2650. Kelson, Mr., 160 INDEX 299 Kennedy, Donald, 150 keron, 271 n. Kesterton, Mr., 272 kibitka, 224 Kinder, coachbuilder, 273 King, Captain, 224 Kink, 199 Kin-sai, 38 Knapp, Edward, 1 1 5 Korff, Baroness de, 208 Kottcze (Kotcze), 63, 65 Kotzee (Kotzi), 62, 65 Kytson family, 76 Lade, Sir John, 197, 211 Ladislaus, King of Hungary, 64 Lafitte, Jacques, 252, 253 landau, 62, 175, 193, 200, 207, 210, 230, 257, 263-266, 268, 271 ; state landau, 259, 260 ; ca>ioe landau, 266 landaulet, 210, 230, 234, 264 Lassells, George, 71 Laurie & Marner, 271 Laval, Rene de, 58 Leadenhall Street, 181, 184 " leathern-conveniency," 163, 238 lee tic a, 29, 36, 86 ; lecticarii, 36 Leek, John, 71 Leith, 90 Lenthall, Speaker, 113 Leominster, 180, 185 Leopold, the Emperor, 119, 160 Ligne, Prince de, 125 lilies, a common form of decoration, 52 Lincoln's Inn Fields, 129 Lincolnshire, 95 litter, Grecian, 26 ; Roman, 29 ; Babylonian, 36 ; mentioned, 36, 45, 52 ^/ seq., 69 ; on wheels, 49 Liverpool, 251 n. Livy, 40 n. Lombardy, 33 n. London, 43, 57, 61, 69, 74, 86, 89, 90, 100, 102, iii, 120, 135, 136, 143-145, 149, 160, 176, 189, 192, 196, 216, 221, 236 n., 241 n., 242, 245, 246, 248, 250, 253, 255, 258, 262, 277, 280 London Spy, The, 154 Longacre, 189 Lonsdale, Earl of, 272, 275 300 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Lords, House of, 114 Louis II, of Hungary, 65 Louis XIII, 121 Louis XV, loi Louterell Psalter, 46, 48 Love in a Wood, 122 Lowther, Mr., 129 Loyd, Lady Mary, 153 n. Lucas, John, coachbuilder, 222 Luttrell, Mr., 159 Lye, 63 Lyly, John, 58 Lyon, John, 57 Macaulay, Lord, 61 Macpherson, 68 M'Adam, James, 178, 185, 205 Madrid, 151, 206 mail-coach, 89, 136, 205, 215, 218, 240, 242, 246 Malvern cart, 235, 279 Mann, Sir Horace, 185, 198 Manners, Henry, 2nd Earl of Rutland, 70 ; 4th Earl of Rutland, 71, 89 Manton, 191 March, Earl of, 188, 189 Marco Polo, 37 Maretto, Giovanna Batta, 69 Margaret, daughter of Henry VII, 53 Marillier, H. C, 281, 283 market cart, Welsh, 239 Markland, J. H., 54, 102 Martial, 36 Mary, Queen, 55, 71 Mary de Medicis, 55 Massachusetts, 276 Massinger, Philip, ^^, 87 n. Matthew of Westminster, 53 « Maypole," The, 88 Megiddo, battle of, 21 Meliadus, le Roman du Roy, 48 Menange, 63 Menshikof, 153 Merchant of Venice, 79 metal roads, 205 Mexico, 221 Middlesex Election, The, 213 Milan, 50, no INDEX 301 Mile End, 49 milord, 233, 266 Milton, Rev. William, 217, 218 minibus, 249 Mirabeau, G. H., 208 Misson, M., 112 Modern Carriages, 2 5 i n. Modern Morning, y^, 198 Molyneux, Mr., 142 monarchus, 3 2 n. Monboddo, Lord, 60 monks as roadmakers, 42 Monmouth, Duke of, 120 Montagu, Lady M. W., 152, 160 Montbrun, M. de, 99 Moore, Francis, 192, 250 Moore, Henry Charles, 136, 246, 249, 250 n. Morgan, Messrs., coachbuilders, 273 Morison, Fynes, 89 mourning chariot, 157 Much Ado about Nothing, 212 Murrey, Sir Frederick, 1 1 7 Musee Cluny, 69 My Journie, 74 Mysore, Maharajah of, 239 Nahum, 24 Naples, 33 n., 50, 140, 160 ; Neapolitans, the, 87 Napoleon, 206 Nero, 34 Newark, 53 Newenham, 43 Newmarket, 188 Newport cart, 235 New York, 23 Nineveh, 24 noddy, 238, 239 Nonesuch, 77 Norfolk, 178 norimon, 108 Norris, Sir John, 59 Northampton, 176 Northanger Abbey, 199 Northumberland, Earl of, 6i Norway, 140, 224 Norwich, 73 302 CARRIAGES AND COACHES Norzv'uh cart^ 235 Nott, Dr., 236 Numa, 33 Nuremberg, 66 Okey, Mr., 252 Oldenburgh, Count of, 112 Olivarez, Duke of, 151 omnibus, 138, 165, 169, 247, 252 et seq., 272, 279-282; omnibus slice, 249 Omnibuses and Cabs, 136 n., 246 n. one-horse cars, 251 n. Onslow, Colonel Tommy (Lord Cranley), 211 Orators, The Female, 105 Orleans, no Orsay, Count D', 277 Ostend, no Oxford, Lord, 122 Paddington, 247, 253 Palestine, 24 Pall Mall, 133 Palmer, John, 205, 215, 241 Paris, 44, 58, 69, 90, 99-ior, 109-111, 120, 127, 136, 138, 169, 172 n., 198, 207, 208, 226, 244, 245, 252, 253, 258, 262, 266, 281 Parma, 124 Pascal, Blaise, 136, 138 Pegge, Samuel, 91 pegma, 32 TTCt/DlVS, 25 Pen, Sir William, 118 Penn, William, 221 Pepys, Samuel, 74, in, 116, 117, n8, 120, 121, 122, 125 ; his coach, 126 et seq. ; Mrs. Pepys, 127 ; Roger Pepys, 130 perambulator, 108 perch, 119 perithron, 272 Peru, 220 Peter the Great, 153 Peter the Great, 153 n. Peterborough, Lady, 120, 121 Petersburg, 153, 259 Petersham, Lord, 235 Petty, Sir William, 142 Petworth, 149 INDEX 303 PfeifFer, Madame, 223 phaeton, 34, 175, 192, 193, 195-198, 200, 210, 212, 214, 22711., 228 n., 234, 237, 238, 242, 262, 269, 275; perch-high phaeton, 211, 234, 269; one-horse phaeton, 212 ; /o/zy phaeton, 212, 267 ; spider phaeton, 270; phaeton chaise, 199; mail-phaetoii, 257, 269; basket phaeton, 257, 270; demi-mail phaeton, 269; Beaufort phaeton, 269. See also cab-phaeton Phaeton, The Neio Fashioned, 192 Phaeton, and the One Horse Chair, The, 1 93 Phaetona, or Modern Female Taste, 197 Philip the Fair, 44 Philistia, 24 (fiopelov, 26, 36, 86 Piacenza, 124 Pickering, Mr., 131 Pickwick, 105 Pierce, Sir Harry, 97 Piers the Plowman, 42 pilentum, 32, 34, 233, 27 i n. Pilkington, George, 7 i Pinch, the Social, 105 Pius IV, Pope, 58 Plane Truth, i;^2 plaustrum, 31, 32, 33 Pliny, 34 plostellum, 32 n. Pomerania, 90 Pontife Brothers, 42 Portland, Duke of, 272 Portsmouth, 149 Portugal, 20, 235 post-chaise, 32 n., 165, 170 et seq., 198, 200, 205, 210, 219, 220, 231 ; cost of, 210 ; post-coach, 200 ; post-landau, 200 postilion, 26, 31, 47, 50, 83, 113, 156, 168, 171, 190, 196, 199, 220, 260, 270 n., 275 Povey, Thomas, 126, 128, 129, 135 Prijicess car, 279 Prior, Matthew, 156 Procopius, 28 Provoked Husband, The, 144 Prussia, Duke of, 118 Public Advertiser, 181 Pultowa, 254 Punch, 270 quar obus, 252 304 CARRIAGES AND COACHES raft, primitive, i8 Ralli car, 278 Rainee, M., 61, 169 Ramses II, 11, 21 rath, 271 n. Raworth, Robert, 92 re da, 32, 35 ; reda cab all aria, 53 Rejected Addresses, 21411. Reports on Carriages, 262 rib chair, 214, 235 Richard II, 42, 48, 49, 53 Richmond, Duchess of (Arabella Stewart), 140 n. Rippon, Walter, 70, 71, 77 roads, 28, 43, 56 Robertson, coachbuilder, 273 Rochead, Mrs., 106 rockazvay, 236 rolling-carts, 181, 189; rollers used, 179, 180, 181, 184, 185 Rome, 28, 29, 32-36, 123, 124, 211 Rosencrantz, Baron, 190 Ross-shire, 105 Rothschild, Baron, 267 Rouknes, Due de, 136 Roubo, M., 121 Rouen, 270 n. Rouland, Roger, 48 roulette. See brouette, Rowe, James, 166 Royal Society, 116, 117, 142 Russia, 153, 223 Rutland, Earl of. See Manners Ryly, " embroderer," 78 Saint James's, 104, 105 190 Salisbury Court, 130 Salvard, Lord of Rousillon, 50 Samuel, Sir Marcus, 260 Sardanapalus, 82 sarracum, 31-33 Saxony, Elector of, 5 7 Schenectady, 236 Scotland, 87, 90, iii, 143, 161, 162, 2""20 Scott, Sir Walter, 167, 168 Screven, Thomas, 76, 77 Scythes used for chariots, 30, 39, 40 n. Scythian cart, 37 INDEX 305 Sedan, 85, 95 Sedan cart, 100 Sedan chair. See chair Sedanny, 95 Sefton, Earl of, 265 sella, 36 ; sella portatoria, 37 ; sella muliebris, 37 Selwyn, George, 102 Seneca, 30, 31 Sentimental Journey, 171 Shakespeare, William, 88 n. Sharpe, James, 181, 184, 185 shay, 140, 221, 222, 246 5 haze. See chaise Shillibeer, George, 253, 254, 280 Shippon, General, 55 Shooter's Hill, 117 Sidney, Sir Philip, 59 Siegmund, Baron de Herberstcin, 65 Sinclair, Sir John, 217 six-wheeled carriage, 237 Sketches by Bo%, 242 Sketches of English Society, 105 cr/ct/xTToStov. See