II' OF SPORTS AND PASTIMES EDITED BY HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, K.G. ASSISTED BY ALFRED E. T. WATSON DRIVING PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON DRIVING BY HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, K.G. it WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY OTHER AUTHORITIES ILLUSTRATED BY G. D. ^GILES^ AND* JOHN STURGESS LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1889 All rights reserved 4 DEDICA TION TO H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES. BADMINTON : March, 1889. HAVING received permission to dedicate these volumes, the BADMINTON LIBRARY of SPORTS and PASTIMES, to His ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES, I do so feeling that I am dedicating them to one of the best and keenest sportsmen of our time. I can say, from personal observation, that there is no man who can extricate himself from a bustling and pushing crowd of horsemen, when a fox breaks covert, more dexterously and quickly than His Royal Highness ; and that when hounds run hard over a big country, no man can take a line of his own and live with them better. Also, when the wind has been blowing hard, often have I seen His Royal Highness knocking over driven grouse and partridges and high-rocketing pheasants in first-rate 309S43 vi DRIVING. workmanlike style. He is held to be a good yachtsman, and as Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron is looked up to by those who love that pleasant and exhilarating pastime. His encouragement of racing is well known, and his attendance at the University, Public School, and other important Matches testifies to his being, like most English gentlemen, fond of all manly sports. I consider it a great privilege to be allowed to dedicate these volumes to so eminent a sportsman as His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and I do so with sincere feelings of respect and esteem and loyal devotion. BEAUFORT. BADMINTON. PREFACE. A FEW LINES only are necessary to explain the object with which these volumes are put forth. There is no modern encyclopaedia to which the inexperienced man, who seeks guidance in the practice of the various British Sports and Pastimes, can turn for information. Some books there are on Hunting, some on Racing, some on Lawn Tennis, some on Fishing, and so on ; but one Library, or succession of volumes, which treats of the Sports and Pastimes indulged in by Englishmen and women is wanting. The Badminton Library is offered to supply the want. Of the imperfections which must be found in the execution of such a design we are viii DRIVING. conscious. Experts often differ. But this we may say, that those who are seeking for knowledge on any of the subjects dealt with will find the results of many years' experience written by men who are in every case adepts at the Sport or Pastime of which they write. It is to point the way to success to those who are ignorant of the sciences they aspire to master, and who have no friend to help or coach them, that these volumes are written. To those who have worked hard to place simply and clearly before the reader that which he will find within, the best thanks of the Editor are due. That it has been no slight labour to supervise all that has been written he must acknowledge ; but it has been a labour of love, and very much lightened by the courtesy of the Publisher, by the unflinching, indefatigable assistance of the Sub- Editor, and by the intelligent and able arrangement of each subject by the various writers, who are so thoroughly masters of the subjects of which they treat. The reward we all hope to reap is that our work may prove useful to this and future generations. THE EDITOR. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. A FEW EXPLANATORY WORDS seem advisable in issuing the present volume the eleventh of the Badminton Library. The task of writing the book on Driving was origi- nally undertaken by the late Major Henry Dixon, whose lamented death occurred when he had only written or sketched out a comparatively few pages. It was not an easy matter to select another author possessed of the necessary qualifications, among which I deemed essential an experience of the road in the old coaching days, together with a knowledge of modern developments and practice ; and, finally, I decided to write myself such reminiscences of former days and comments on the coachmanship of to-day as seemed to further the object of the book, and to ask those of my friends who had special knowledge of particular subjects to contribute chapters on matters which they were peculiarly competent to treat. I may anticipate a possible criticism that, in the ' Hints to Beginners ' and in one or two other places, x DRIVING. something in the nature of repetition will be found. As just explained, however, the work of writing chapters on the art of driving was committed to several hands. If the various writers all agree in emphasising certain points and rules, it will be understood that these are matters upon which it seems desirable that emphasis should be laid ; and it has been thought well, therefore, to let the different contributors offer their advice and experience in their own words. In the present volume there will be found more anecdote and personal reminis- cence than in the previous books, the reason being that we have believed instruction and advice were thus con- veyed in more interesting and agreeable fashion than if a balder and more didactic style had been employed. My thanks are due to those who have so readily come forward to assist me in the composition of this volume ; to my old friend Lord Algernon St. Maur, whose experience of bygone days cannot fail to enter- tain all who are interested in driving ; to Lady Georgiana Curzon, who speaks with authority as well as lucidity on the subject of Tandem-driving ; to Lord Onslow, for his practical chapter ; to Sir Christopher Teesdale, for his amusing and graphic reminiscences ; to Colonel H. Smith-Baillie, for the instructive summary of the principles of coachmanship ; to Mr. G. N. Hooper, for a treatise full of information ; and to the late Major Dixon. BEAUFORT. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION i By the Duke of Beaufort, K. G. II. CARRIAGES ;:.,'. . . 21 By Alfred E. T. Watson. III. THE CARRIAGE-HORSE 53 By the Earl of Onstow, G. C. M. G. IV. THE COACH-HORSE . 77 By the Duke of Beaufort, K. G. V. THE COACH-HOUSE, HARNESS-ROOM, AND DRIVING APPLIANCES 83 By the late Major Henry Dixon, W. C. A. Blew, and Others. VI. THE COST OF A CARRIAGE 105 By Alfred E. T. Watson. VII. HINTS TO BEGINNERS. PART 1 116 By the late Major Henry Dixon. PART II 131 By Colonel Hugh Smith- Baillie. VIII. SINGLE HARNESS 138 By Lord Algernon St. Maur. IX. TANDEM-DRIVING . 147 By Lady Georgiana Ctirzon. xii DRIVING. CHAPTER PAGE X. QUOUSQUE TANDEM ? 163 By Major- General Sir C. Teesdale, R.A.,V.C., K. C. M. G. XI. OLD COACHING DAYS 171 By Lord Algernon St. Maur. XII. 'ON THE BOX' 2l8 By the Duke of Beaufort, K. G. XIII. THE BRIGHTON, BATH, AND DOVER ROADS . . 229 By the Duke of Beaufort, K. G. XIV. DRIVING CLUBS, OLD AND NEW . . . . 247 XV. THE COACHING REVIVAL 273 Compiled by W. C. A. Blew. XVI. POSTING IN ENGLAND . .... 306 By the Duke of Beaufort, K. G. XVII. POSTING IN FRANCE 319 By the Duke of Beaufort, K G. XVIII, SLEIGHING .... .... 329 By Major- General Sir C. Teesdale, R.A.,V.C.,K. C. M. G. XIX. MODERN CARRIAGES " 345 By George N. Hooper. THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DRIVING 398 INDEX 405 ILL USTRA TIONS. (REPRODUCED BY E. WHYMPER AND MESSRS. WALKER & BOUTALL, AFTER DRAWINGS BY G. D. GlLES AND J. STURGESS, AND PHOTO- GRAPHS. ) FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, K.G. ARTIST . G. D. Giles . . frontispiece OT EXACTLY A TEAM FOR BEGINNER \J. Sturgess . To face p. 126 'Aw AY HE WENT' . G. D. Giles . . 142 HEAVY NIGHT COACH . . J. Sturgess . 144 LADY GEORGIANA CURZON'S TA: DEM ..... ( From a photograph \ N j ' by Messrs. Hills [ 152 \ 6 Saunders } G. D. Giles 116 EXCITABLE LEADERS .... . G. D. Giles . . . 119 THE START . . . J. Sturgess 123 BREAKING-IN . . . . . J. Sturgess . 138 A BEGINNER ..... . J. Sturgess 140 AN EFFECTUAL STOP .... . J. Sturgess . . . 143 {Front a photograph \ by Messrs. Hills I Id.7 & Sounders } X T-/ A LEG OVER THE TRACE . . J. Sttirgess 155 NOT KNOWING WHAT OBSTACLE MAY BE) [ r J. Sturgess . . . 159 'CHARMING AND SPEEDY TRAVELLING' . J. Sturgess . . 162 SEAL OF THE TANDEM CLUB . 163 'Two MINUTES TO SPARE' . . G. D. Giles . 171 THE SUDBURY BARROW . . y. Sturgess . . . . G. D. Giles 182 I 06 LEFT BEHIND . G. D. Giles . . . . G. D. Giles iy\j 203 2O7 THE LATE JAMES SELBY . {' From a photograph \ by Messrs. Win- - . doiv 6 Grove } **\j j 213 ON THE Box . G. D. Giles . 218 THE RED ROVER IN A GALE . . G. D< Giles . . . 229 'RODE ACROSS THE LEADERS* . G. D. Giles . 235 HYDE PARK CORNER . G. D. Giles . . . 247 HATCHETT'S WHITE HORSE CELLAR . . G. D. Giles 273 THE DEFIANCE . J. Sturgess . . . 295 DRIVING. i IHT i i 1 1 MK POSTBOY , . , , (/,/?. Gilts . , 306 n MI., SNOW, ANI. KAIN , G. D. Gilts. , .315 \ IT \.II.M REMON8TRANCR , , , G. J). Gilts . MOUNTAIN Si,i',ic;ii i N CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. r.v i in i IUKI OK r.i MM .I.K i , K.C.. \YniTil|| K we look upon iMmii:' hom the point >(' view of IniMiiess or ot | >leasin e, i! is ( eil.im Hut no in. in \\lio IMS kid MMirh of it hut feels his pulse(|iiieken, ;ind ;i st-nsiM)!' i-njoMiu-n! |>cr\;ide him, when sitlm;; hclnnd one, l\vo, oi' loin t|iii< k .ind \\ell |Hlt lo<;rlhri hoi:,es. \\'h;it is inoie deli;>ltl lul ill. ill .1 i'.ood ;md pielm e:.t pie ro.id, a well htnlt ;ind well innnini 1 , < .11 1 i.ii'e, h. lines', piopcil\ lilted, hoise-. Inlled ;ind pill to so thai I hey i',o with ease to ihemseUt-s and do then I. HI share of work ? It is lo };ive to the uninitiated a ehanee ot enjoNim; a drive under the al)o\c ondilions that we oiler this volume to thepiiMie. It is mm h easier tO sllOW pralh.ill\ to a young coa. hman j : ,../', ,: DRIVING. those little 'dodges' and tricks that are so necessary to the comfort of both coachman and horses than it is to convey them to the tiro's mind with ink and paper : still there are many things which may be learnt, and conveyed to the beginner, by those who have had good instruction from past-masters in the art of driving (most of them, alas ! no more on this earth), and who have had long and varied experience, both on public coaches and in driving privately, alike in town and country. It is said that in this present age young gentlemen usually begin by trying to drive four horses before they have learnt to drive one ; and observation has shown us that this is partially true. Let us hope, however, that some of those we have noticed represent the exceptions and not the rule. One of them, on being asked what the probable result of his attempt would be, replied, ' I believe it is a very difficult thing to upset a coach ' ! After the numerous attempts I have seen, I begin to think the young gentleman was right. Let us more modestly start with one horse, and begin by remarking that the harness must fit perfectly ; the shafts must be wide enough and not too wide ; the traces of exactly the right length, so that the horse shall draw with them, and not with his back band. Above all, let the coachman see, before he gets on to his seat, that the loop of the back band is in front of the stop on the shaft ; for on that, whether it be a two-wheeled or a four-wheeled carriage, depends the safety of the driver and those who accompany him. The bitting of the horse the beginner must leave to some one else. If he is a man of ordinary common sense, he will soon find out, or some friend accustomed to driving will tell him, that his bit is too sharp, or the reverse ; that his horse, having a one-sided mouth, will go better at the check one side and the middle the other; or that some other alteration or arrangement is desirable. In short, he must find out for himself, or by the aid of som6 one else's experience, how to bit his horse, and must continue to change the bit, or alter the reins up or down on the bit, till 4-he horse goes pleasantly. The width and thickness of the INTRODUCTION. 3 reins make a great difference to the comfort of the coachman, and their size must depend on the length of his fingers and the size of his hands. Also the fit of a man's gloves a subject dealt with in its place is an important item in the comfort or discomfort of driving. And now supposing everything to be all right for a start, our coachman, always with reins in hand, mounts his dogcart or buggy. When he wants to start, ' Let him go ! ' or a nod to the ostler or helper or groom at the horse's head, should be simultaneous with drawing his reins shorter, and just feeling his horse's mouth lightly, thus giving the animal ' the office ' to start. Here we may remark that this is the correct mode of starting all horses in harness, whether one, two, or four. Our coachman, starting with the reins in his left hand and his whip in his right, must bear in mind that nature gave him that left hand for this particular purpose, and that the right hand has no sort of business to touch the reins, except for the purpose of shortening or lengthening one or both of them, or of supporting the left hand, should it require assistance ; and that when the right hand renders this assistance, it should do so in such a manner as to be able to leave go again without altering the length of either of the reins. That dreadful sight, which is to be seen a hundred and more times every day in the streets of London, of gentlemen and their coachmen (gardeners, I ought to say) driving one or a pair with their hands close up to their noses, and a rein in each hand, the two hands being from six to twelve inches apart, is enough to give anyone, with the least notion of how a man should drive, a fit of the shivers. Watch them ! See the man with the gold hatband, with a very long crop to his whip, light-coloured with dark knots all the way up, and at the end of his thong a red whipcord lash (horror !) see him fetch the old brougham horse one from his ear to his high goose rump. Mark the effect ! The off rein being held with the whip in the right hand, there comes suddenly two, feet of slack on that rein. , Our poor B 2 DRIVING. friend the brougham horse having received this vicious cut, being still held by the near rein, and not having his mouth touched by the off one, makes a dart to the near side, and either knocks a lamp-post with his forewheel, runs into the dustcart standing by the kerb- stone, or is saved from this calamity by a frightful scramble and exertion on the part of the personage with a gravel walk round his hat. See again, a few yards further on, the gentleman driving himself in a phaeton with his hands up close to his nose. The omnibus in front of him pulls up short : our INTRODUCTION. 5 friend must do the same. He has reins in both hands instead of only in his left hand in which latter case he would simply catch hold of his reins behind his left hand with his right hand, shorten them quickly and at once, and pull his horse or pair of horses up with the left hand. Being, however, in the same position as the coachman of the brougham we have just seen, what does he do ? The only thing possible. His hands go up above the top of his hat. But that does not stop his horses, and he leans back and back and back still more. What is the matter with the poor gentleman ? Is he in a fit ? Or does he wish to shake hands with the groom sitting behind him ? Or is there a balloon passing overhead that he wishes to see ? Let our young friend take warning by what he may observe daily in the streets, and say to himself, ' I mean to become a coachman, and I see that to do so I must obey the laws of nature, which have decreed that the left hand shall be used for driving.' Establish a freemasonry between your hand and your horse's mouth. When you want to go round a corner to the right (having previously, without touching the reins with your right hand, given your horse * the office ' that you are soon going to turn in that direction), bend your wrist over so as to bring your thumb undermost towards your left hip. Should it be towards the left hand you wish to turn, bring your little finger undermost and incline it towards your right hip. The driving hand should be straight in the centre of your body, with the knuckles of your hand to the front and your forearm exactly square to the upper arm ; the elbow and back of the fingers, when shut over the reins, lightly touching your coat. Avoid squaring your elbows and swagger of any sort when driving. Hold your whip in your right hand not at the end, but where it will balance nicely either for carrying or using. You will probably find that to be about where the collar is. (To the uninitiated we would remark that the collar is the silver plate about fourteen or sixteen inches from the thick end of the stick.) Remember that your comfort depends on keeping on good terms with your horse. This is to be done by being 6 DRIVING. gentle with him driving with as light a hand as you can, never hitting him with the whip unnecessarily, or jobbing him in the mouth with the bit. From long experience, and having saved many broken knees by their use, we advocate bearing reins especially in single harness put on with sense and dis- cretion, so as never to be so short as to annoy a horse in any way, and always when standing still for any time to be unborne. In course of time, when the beginner has had some experi- enceunder good guidance if it can possibly be obtained, but otherwise after careful observation of the circumstances and conditions under which the horse goes most comfortably to himself and his driver he may take a step in advance and essay the task of driving a pair. On that we can only say that the putting the horses properly to the carriage, as regards the length of their traces and pole pieces, as well as of the coupling reins, is the most important factor in enabling a coachman to drive with satisfaction to himself and comfort to his horses : points which, it cannot be too strongly emphasised, must always be considered together. One great thing, which is much prac- tised nowadays and is specially to be avoided, is poling up the horses so tightly that they are like animals fixed in a vice. This is alike cruel to the horse and dangerous to the driver and his passengers. The greatest care should be taken always to leave sufficient play upon the pole pieces. By the word ' play ' we mean slackness when the horses are drawing with the traces and also when the animals are holding back. In another part of this work we shall touch upon the ques- tion of the application of the break for stopping the carriage ; but we must here particularly impress upon the young (and in not a few cases the hint may be judiciously and usefully extended to the old) coachman that, as a general rule, a great deal too much use is made of the break. It is a great relief to a horse when he makes a slight descent to come out of his collar so that the carriage travels along behind him without any exertion on his part. Almost invariably, however, the spectator will observe that the moment the carriage goes down INTRODUCTION. 7 ever so slight a declivity, the coachman claps on his break ; and the consequence is that the horse is always pulling, the practical effect of which, so far as he is concerned, is that he always seems to be going uphill. It should be the object of the driver to make the horse's work as easy as possible and to relieve him from this unnecessary strain. If the descent be severe the break should of course be applied ; but coachmen must discriminate, and there can be no doubt that most of them are far too apt to employ this comparatively modern convenience. With regard to the question of the proper length of the coupling reins, they should be so adjusted that you can touch both sides of your horse's mouth at the same moment. In fitting this portion of the harness it is to be noticed that a great deal depends upon the horse's neck. You may have a pair of horses apparently the same length from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail, and yet one horse's neck may be four or five inches shorter than the other ; and it is extra- ordinary what a considerable difference to the adjustment of the coupling reins this makes. Without being present to point out these things, it is impossible for any author to lay down a hard-and-fast rule : it must be left to the common sense of those who drive or put the horses to. A coachman will often find that, for some inexplicable reason, a horse will wear himself in a different form one day from what he will another, and when this is found to be the case, the driver, if he has time, should pull up and alter the coupling reins to meet the requirements for the moment. The rule already laid down with regard to driving with one (the left) hand, so that the right may be available for shortening or lengthening the reins, applies here as in the case of driving one horse indeed, is more important with two or with four horses than it is with one. In former times, when there was no break for carriages, it was absolutely necessary for a man to drive with one hand, because when going down a steep hill with a heavy load, and 8 DRIVING. with tired and jaded horses, it was very often only possible to keep in the road by the use of the whip. Horses have a habit of hanging, so to speak, to one side or the other, to such an extent that nothing but a smart flick over the shoulder or the neck will straighten them, or prevent the vehicle from running into the ditch ; and if, before the days of breaks, a coachman had attempted the wretched modern practice of driving with a rein in each hand, he would most assuredly have upset his load. I will now proceed to give some short directions . as to the proper mode of driving four horses, and in doing that I shall cover the ground which otherwise would have had to be covered over a second time as regards the driving of a pair. To start from the beginning. In former days coachmen, particularly in public coaches, generally had the whip laid across the wheel-horses' backs and the reins just looped up on the outside terret of the off wheel-horse. This is hardly neces- sary in these days for an amateur on his own coach with his own servants, although he may get his whip broken by putting it into the whip-bucket. The coachman, going to mount in the old fashion, would proceed by taking the leading reins and drawing them to him without actually touching the leaders' mouths, though in order to have ready command over them the touch should only be just avoided. He takes these reins in his left hand and places them on either side of the middle finger of his right hand. He then takes the wheel reins and places them on either side of the third finger of his right hand. In doing this he should have the off-side leading rein and the off-side wheel rein twelve to eighteen inches longer than the near side, and he will then find that when he mounts his box the reins will be level in his hand. With the whip and reins both in the right hand, he must catch hold of the loop hanging from the box, should there be one, or of the lamp iron, raise his left foot to the wheel-box, put his right foot on the outside roller bolt on the splinter-bar, his left foot he will then place on the step, his right foot brings him up to the foot- INTRODUCTION. 9 board of the box, and he should then immediately sit down upon his driving seat. Some people are in the habit of stand- ing up after they reach the footboard, but this is an aimless, and, indeed, a dangerous proceeding, for the simple reason that if the horses should make a sudden move forward the driver is very likely to be jerked off the box, when the horses, already in motion, will be left without government or guidance, and, unless by some fortunate accident they are promptly stopped, the passengers will find themselves in a very uncom- fortable situation. Before proceeding to point out what the driver should do next, I will take the opportunity of making a few remarks as to what the box-seat of a coach should be. Observers will perceive that many of the coachbuilders turn out gentlemen's coaches with a box at an angle of forty-five degrees, so that it is utterly impossible for a coachman to sit upon it ; and therefore his position is that of a man leaning against a wall with his legs stuck out. A coachman thus placed has no firmness or security. If the wheel-horses should fall, he would certainly be^plucked over ; if he happened to run over a heap of stones or some such obstacle, he would almost inevitably be shot over on to his horses' backs. It is very essential that the box should be suited to the driver: that it should be sloped according to his height, and length of leg. Nothing is more absolutely neces- sary to good driving than that the coachman should be placed with ease and comfort to himself on his seat ; and when we say ' seat ' we do not mean a structure placed behind him so that he may lean against it. There must be a slight slope. Speaking rather at a venture, I should be inclined to say that the back of the box should be three inches, or from that to four inches, higher than the front part of the cushion. This is ample slope for anybody. Having seated himself on the box, the coachman should put both his feet close together. His left hand should be about where the top of his trousers would come that is, the forearm pretty nearly or absolutely horizontal the hand TO DRIVING. almost, if not quite, in the centre of the body, touching his body with the backs of his fingers, and his knuckles straight to the front ; he will find that his wrist makes a natural dumb-jockey, because the wrist will work backwards and forwards like a spring, whereas if he sits with his forearm straight to the front none of the hinges which nature has given him in his elbow and his wrist will act on the horses' mouths. The gentleman, being already placed, must recollect never, under any circumstances, to omit calling out in a loud voice, ' Sit fast ! ' Fearful accidents have happened when coachmen have started without the necessary precaution of such a warn- ing. It is a long way from the roof of a coach to the ground, and many men have been pitched off and seriously injured through the carelessness or ignorance of coachmen in setting off without a caution. Having thus warned his passengers, he must then give the hint to his horses to start ; and that is done by very slightly drawing the reins so as to touch every horse's mouth ; then, with a nod to the man at the wheelers' heads, or with a cry of ' Stand away ! ' off he will find all the horses go together. An unworkmanlike trick, which the coachman cannot be too careful to avoid, is that of suddenly slacking his reins and pushing out his hands before him when he wants to start ; a trick, however, which is much affected by many men who find themselves on a driving seat which they do not adorn. The result of this proceeding is that the horses, not knowing what -is wanted and, being sensible animals, it is not to be expected that they can know stick their heads up and stand still. Some one of the team, finding himself suddenly released, perhaps a wheel-horse, starts off and rams the bars under the leaders' tails an occurrence which they naturally resent ; in their excitement and alarm the chances are that they will at once begin kicking, and a considerable amount of confusion and difficulty, if not of danger, is likely to arise before things are set straight again : so easily do accidents happen, and by such simple precautions may they be avoided. IN TROD UCTION. \ I As a rule, a beginner may take it pretty well for granted that when once he gets under way with good horses, even though he has never driven four horses before, he is pretty safe bar- ring, of course, mishaps which cannot be foreseen until he wishes to pull up ; and it may be said that almost all the acci- dents which occur, though fortunately in coaching these are rare, take place either in starting or in pulling up. We have not alluded, either when talking of driving one horse or driving two horses, to the pace at which it is advisable to go. This must of course depend very much upon a variety of circumstances. If anyone is going to catch a train, and has only fifty minutes to do ten miles in, he must necessarily gallop if his horses cannot trot fast enough ; but until the gentleman has driven some years, and is quite master of the business, we should recommend him to restrict himself to a trot. If he has naturally fast horses, they would be not unlikely to trot at the rate of ten miles an hour with greater ease to themselves than at the rate of eight miles ; but a good principle to observe through life is to save your cattle as much as you carr^ and if you have very fine free horses, well bred, and naturally fast, not to allow them to go at the top of their speed, though at the same time to take them at such a pace that they will not be wearied and annoyed by efforts at holding them back. With the generality of horses, coachmen will find that about nine miles an hour is as much as they care to do, though, as we said before, the pace must necessarily be adjusted to the requirements of the moment. Many people -will be apt to say, ' How do you know at what pace you are going ? ' And it must be admitted that the speed of horses is very deceptive to the eye ; it will often seem to the observer that a big team of sixteen-hand horses are apparently going along very slowly, but with their long stride they will in reality be going a good ten miles an hour when they look as if they were not travelling more than eight miles. The converse is often equally the case : small quick-stepping horses will induce the driver to fancy that they are going at a 12 DRIVING. much greater pace than that at which they really are pro- gressing. In former days all the big roads had milestones, and there are Take draught off them going downhill. still many of them remaining ; and a very useful lesson with regard to pace would be learnt if all coachmen, even when only out for a drive of pleasure along a road where milestones still remain, would take their watches out on passing one and note how INTRODUCTION. 13 many minutes it takes them to reach the next. There is another way by which a practised eye can tell at what rate he is going, and that is by looking down at his front wheel and seeing at what rate it is revolving. By this he can judge far better than by looking at the horses, though the unpractised eye would learn nothing till experience taught the lesson. The way to drive a stage, and particularly a long one, is, not to allow the leaders to do too much work on the flat, to be sure and take the draught off them on going down a hill, and only to call upon them for a little extra assistance in going Mk Only call on them for extra assistance going uphill. uphill. A man who comes to a short pitch when driving fast will find that, if he takes the draught off his leaders by pulling his reins, say, two inches or two and a half inches back, and placing them on the top finger of his left hand and pressing them down with his thumb, when he comes to the bottom of the hill, he will have nothing to do but just raise his thumb, and there are the horses, having caught hold of their bars, ready to assist in mounting the next hill. 14 DRIVING. Very often in driving, especially about the narrow streets of towns, it is not a bad plan, supposing you are turning to the left, to shorten the off-wheel rein in front, just under your thumb, in the same way, almost at the same moment that you are shortening your near rein, to turn round the corner. Be very sure that the assistance given by the right hand is only momentary, and that it is free to use the whip when you are turning the corner. The shortening of the off- wheel rein is to prevent the wheel-horses from turning too sharp round the corner, and knocking the coach on the post or stone that will probably be found at the edge of the pavement ; because wheel-horses that have been much driven get very cunning, and they feel the office given to the leaders by the rein which runs alongside of their heads. Of course the same rule applies when turning to the right, only then the near-wheel rein must be shortened. We have already cautioned the beginner against indulging in the gallop, but it will sometimes happen unavoidably, if a coach- man has gone a little fast off the top of a pitch, that when the horses get near to the bottom, or are absolutely at the bottom, they will break into a gallop. On such occasions, unless the coachman understands how to keep his horses steady, it will very often be found that the coach is set rocking, which is a danger that might end in a swing over. The natural impulse of a coachman who feels the vehicle thus swaying is to check his horses and try to pull them all up, but to do this is only to increase the danger. The safest plan of avoiding an accident when such a thing occurs is rather to increase the pace, and especially to give a little more rein to the leaders, who will then catch hold of the pole, and, pulling the coach straight, will steady it; and then is the time to get fast hold of all four horses and gradually pull them into a trot. The intending coachman, when he is in the country, should walk about with a four-in-hand whip until he has made him? self quite at home in the art of catching the thong. Many men who can drive very fairly are hampered by a want of IN TROD UCTION. T 5 knowledge how to dispose of their whip when on the coach-box. Having learned how to catch the thong, one great principle is to learn to do it without looking at it, and to catch it without making any noise. A man who looks at his thong, when it is going up to the stick, is sure to cut at it with his stick, and invariably misses the catch ; whereas, if he has been taught properly, a slight turn of the wrist is all that is necessary to send the thong up to the stick. Safest to increase the pace. In these days, when such well-bred and lightly-worked horses are generally driven, there is very little necessity for the use of the whip. Still occasions may arise when upon a proper application of the whip the safety of the coach may depend, and its proper employment, therefore, is a most essential element of the art of driving. One thing that a coachman should recollect, if he desires to let go his thong to hit one of the leaders when there are a great many passengers on the back of the coach, is the 16 DRIVING. desirability of avoiding such mishaps as flicking a gentleman under the ear, or sending the dirty end of the whip round some- one's face, when the object in view has simply been to touch a leader. In the first place, the coachman must remember that he cannot hit his leaders too quietly. He should manage to do so in such a way that the wheel-horses may not be aware that he is using his whip at all. Not a sound must be heard, and it is specially desirable not to hit the wheel-horses on the nose instead of just dropping the point of the whip on the leaders' hocks. The upper cut by which we mean making the point of the whip go upwards from under the bar is the correct way of hitting a leader. Many a time I have seen a beginner smack his leader all down the back, with the result that, much to the astonishment of the owner of the whip, it flies off the horse's back straight across his own face. In hitting a wheeler, unless he is a most arrant slug and warranted not to kick, the whip should be applied in front of the pad. This will obviate a difficulty in which coachmen not seldom get themselves placed, arising from the fact that in hitting a horse behind the pad he is apt to flick his tail and get a double thong tight in under it. I once saw a gentleman in that predicament ; the result being that there were two large holes in the front boot of his coach, one young lady on the roof fainted, the greater part of the harness was broken, and his load had to be taken on to the racecourse to which he was driving by the assistance of two other coaches, his own coach having to be led ignominiously home. Before leaving the subject of driving I would add, that in the remarks made with regard to the driving of one horse, the turn of the wrist either way is equally applicable to drivers with four horses ; and it is even more important to learn to go from the right to the left of the road or from the left to the right without the assistance of the right hand. In making the horses incline or turn to the right, the thumb disappears from view, the back of the hand and knuckles show, and the little finger is upper- INTRODUCTION. 17 most. In making them incline or turn to the left it is just the reverse. The little finger disappears, the thumb becomes visible, the back of the hand cannot be seen, and the ends and back of the fingers come into view. The incline to the right. A few words may here be said about the manner of put- ting the horses to the carriage One great thing to be avoided is frightening the horse on bringing him up to the vehicle ; and another is knocking his hind legs up against the splinter- bar or against the pole, as many grooms are apt to do in bringing them up and turning them short round. If the horses hit themselves, an accident is not an improbability. The groom should not lead the horse about by the bottom of the bit. If any difference of opinion occurs between the man and the animal, it causes a sharp jerk to be administered to the horse's mouth, whereupon he generally throws his head up c 1 8 DRIVING. and runs back ; the proper course is to put the hand inside the check-piece or the nose-band and to lead the horse along by that. When the horse is in proper position alongside the pole (it is perhaps hardly necessary to remark that the wheel-horse should always be put to first), the man standing at the horse's head should run the pole chain, or pole piece, as the case may be, th: ough the ring at the bottom of the hames, and hold that with one hand so as to prevent the horse from running back on to the splinter-bar, while the other man places him a little back to put the trace on, the outside trace being invariably put on first, and the inside one afterwards. So in taking the horse off, the inside trace is taken off first, and the outside one last ; otherwise you may find yourself in the position of having the horse fastened to the coach or carriage by the inside trace, and flying round and getting his head towards the carriage a posi- tion which may lead to considerable difficulty, if not accident. Having got both traces over the roller bolt, it is then time to pole the horse up. Immediately that is done, the leaders' traces should be hooked on to the bars. I consider it a very good plan to loop the traces that is, to pass one trace through the other and bring it back on to each horse's own bar. It steadies the bars and prevents them from swinging. Should any gentleman wish to fasten his two small bars together (a proceeding which I do not in any way advocate), let him at all events refrain from doing so with a chain, a fashion which I perceive is very much in vogue. The simple reason against the course deprecated is that, should a leader kick and get his legs between the main bar and the swing bars, it would be necessary, in order to extricate him from that position, to saw one of the bars in two, and he may break the pole before this can be done. I prefer that there should be no fastening of the bars together, or, at all events, if they are fastened, nothing but a strap should be used, as there is a possibility of cutting the strap. Having got the leaders put to, the leading reins are then placed through the terret on the outside of the bridle of the INTRODUCTION. 19 wheel-horse through the centre terret of the pad, and the horses are ready to start. Some gentlemen have a fancy for running the leading rein over the wheel-horse's head, and it certainly looks better and smarter, but there are many reasons why running them on the outside is preferable. In the first place, if a leader pulls, there is considerable pressure on the top of the wheel-horse's head ; and, in the second place, if the wheel- horse throws his head up much, it perpetually checks the leaders. With the exception that it is keeping the rein further away from the wheelers' tails, I do not know that there is any advantage in running the rein over their heads. Should one of the leaders be in the habit of getting his tail over his rein, and 20 DRIVING. then setting to work to kick, it is not a bad plan to run his rein, if he is off side, through the ring on the inside of the near wheel-horse's head, and if he is near side, through the ring on the inside of the off wheel-horse's head. .This keeps the rein out of his way. In taking the horses off, it is often the custom, directly a man pulls up, to throw the reins down on their backs : I think it is better to wait before doing so. In these luxurious days, when everybody has two grooms with a team of four horses, it may scarcely seem necessary to say where the place of the groom ought to be when the horses are standing ; but in the event of a gentleman having only one man with him, let him remember above all things that that man must not go to the leaders' heads ; he should go straight to the wheel-horses' heads and catch hold of both leading reins with one hand whilst he is standing there, and make use of the other to stop the wheel-horses should they move. Should he go to the leaders' heads with no one standing at the wheel- horses, the latter might jump forward, and the leaders knock the man down standing in front of them, when away would go the coach and horses ; whereas one man at the wheel-horses' heads is perfectly competent to control the whole four. j CARRIAGES. BY ALFRED E. T. WATSON. THE thing which chiefly puzzled Charles Darwin in his researches and speculations with regard to the development of species was the evolution of the eye. He could not even guess plausibly how the eye was generated ; and what perplexes the inquirer into the subject of the origin of carriages is the question when the wheel originally came into existence. When first horses were domesticated and pressed into the service of man, superseding, as there is reason to suppose, the use first of oxen and then of asses, the man doubtless put what he wanted to be carried on his horse's back, fastening it there as best he could. But some keen observer, as we must suppose, watching his horse thus burdened, hit on the idea that a more convenient method might be adopted, and the horse's strength better utilised. He had, in fact, evolved the earliest notion of the carnage. His mode of procedure was to take a couple of poles and so fasten them round the horse's neck that they dragged on For assistance in the compilation of the following chapter, the writer is much indebted to Mr. G. N. Hooper, of the firm of Hooper & Co., carriage- builders, of 113 Victoria Street. 22 DRIVING. the ground behind his heels, and on these poles he placed, and in some way or other fastened so that it would not fall off, what he wanted to carry. We can, of course, only imagine dimly the sensation which was caused when the proud inventor first exhibited his carriage for that this was the original carriage seems to be proved by the circumstances that a similar con- trivance is still in use among the red men of America. For The first carriage. the sake of contrast let us step over a few thousands of years and glance from the earliest carriage to the latest. We are apt to consider these the days of marvellous inventions, but we cannot by any possibility realise the magnitude and brilliance of the idea of the first wheel. There is nothing to guide us even to about the century when by degrees some man of active mind first began to perceive that CARRIAGES. 23 improvements in carriage-buildingsomething more con- venient and serviceable than these dragging poles, that is to say were within the bounds of possibility. If the poles could be raised to the horizontal it would be something. Articles would not fall off; a man might sit comfortably and rest himself when he was tired of walking by the horse's side. Then some mighty genius in a flash of vivid imagination devised the wheel. His name, even his country, has been lost in the mist of ages, though it should rank on a level with the discoveries of gunpowder and of the electric telegraph. We can only speculate upon his proceedings when the splendid conception struck him, but it seems very likely that he cut down a tree, 1889.' chopped two slices or circles of wood from the trunk, and probably sat down overwhelmed by the evident fact that there was still a vast deal to be done ; for how were his round pieces of wood to be so fastened that they would turn ? If the reader cares to amuse himself by following out these fancies, he may speculate as to whether the early inventor strove to work out the problem for himself, or whether he 24 DRIVING. called his friends into consultation in what strange and forgotten language did they discuss the question of wheels and how to make them turn ? showed them his round sections of tree, and explained the difficulties which had to be solved. Imagine a meeting of the wise men bent on the arduous task of discovering the first crude suggestion of the axle-tree ! We cannot ask the artists to draw the picture, for they would not know whether to clothe the group in the skins of wild beasts or in some species of robe, and then again the sort of tree which was thus cut down would be only guesswork, as no one can tell in what clime the discussion took place. All that can be ascertained is that the wheel must have been invented thousands of years before the Christian era, for the reason that when the chariot first makes its appearance in the Egyptian monuments it is so complete that there can be no doubt as to wheeled vehicles having been long in use, not perhaps by the monument-building Egyptians themselves, but by their conquerors the Hyksos and the people whence the Shepherd Kings came. From the first appearance of the chariot we find many representations of wheeled vehicles upon the monuments of Egypt, of Asia Minor, of Greece, and of Rome. These early chariots were primarily used for war, though it is natural to assume that considerable progress in driving and familiarity with wheeled vehicles must have been made before men would risk their lives in battle on anything but their own legs. There is reason to suppose, however, that chariots were used for journeys and for the ordinary purposes for which carriages are employed, and doubtless at a very early period of their existence for races. The same spirit which in this year of grace draws vast crowds to Epsom and Ascot doubtless moved men five thousand years and more ago, though whether in the chariot races spectators backed their fancies, tried to pick out the best team of two, four, or more horses, as the case might be, and to judge whether the superiority of one champion's driving would enable him to beat a somewhat CARRIAGES. 25 better chariot driven by a notoriously less expert warrior, lands us again in the region of speculation. The earliest wheeled vehicles chariots -of which traces exist on the monuments to which reference has been made, were drawn by two horses, and here, again, it is obvious that there must have been a lapse of time during which events happened of which there is no record ; for it seems only natural to suppose that men must for a long period have driven one horse before somebody hit on the notion of a pair, though when once the pair was started the natural vanity of man and his desire to display his wealth and consequence rather, perhaps, than consideration as to the work horses were required to do, length of their journeys, the weight they had to draw, would suggest teams of four, six, eight, and even a greater number. Another discovery, which no doubt created a stir at the time, was the four-wheeled carriage in all probability the roughest possible form of waggon. Bible history may here be drawn upon. In the 4 ist chapter of Genesis, which is dated 1715 B.C., we read that ' Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck. And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had.' Some eight years later Pharaoh sent for Jacob. Joseph was bidden to say to his brethren, ' Take you waggons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives, and bring your father and come.' Joseph gave them waggons accordingly, and we can only suppose that waggons were known in Canaan, for when Jacob saw them he perfectly understood what they were and why they had been sent. We thus have the record of the waggon nearly 2,000 years B.C. Four-wheeled waggons were used by the Greeks and by the Romans, but the two-wheeled chariot was always the favourite vehicle of the ancients for war or for pomp, perhaps because there was more elegance about it, and it was much speedier. The poets and historians of old took delight in 26 DRIVING. describing the glories of a chariot adorned with ivory, with gold and silver, and with precious stones. The discomforts of a journey in any of the early vehicles can, however, be imagined when one remembers that carriage springs are of comparatively modern invention, and that even in cities of the first consequence the art of road-making was in its infancy. The Appian Way, B.C. 331, may have been fairly good for vehicles ; but as a rule the rate of progress must have been so slow that the chariot was comparatively as far behind the modern coach as the best-horsed vehicle is in speed behind the express train ; accidents in the nature of a break-down were surely common, and the fatigue of a journey must have been great from the jolts and bumps which marked every pace. Over these periods, however, we must not linger. Ad- vancing at a bound to the middle ages a necessarily shifty date, but near enough for the purpose of the present dis- cussion we find that little use was made of wheeled vehicles. The country was less enclosed than at present, of course, but there were few roads along which heavy carriages could make good way. Me Adam was not to appear for several centuries, and it must have been terribly hard work for horses to pull loads, as we may say, practically across country. A man could get on incomparably better on horseback than in a carriage, and goods were chiefly carried on pack-horses. About the thirteenth century the use of carriages became somewhat common among the higher nobility, though it seems to have been considered effeminate for men to use them, and women usually pre- ferred the saddle or the pillion. We can easily understand that carriages must have been slow and uncomfortable, and liable to accident, notwithstanding that the exceedingly moderate pace would prevent such accidents from being of a very dangerous description. That carriages were, if not easy, at any rate gorgeous, is shown by the author of the poem called ' The Squyr of Low Degree,' written certainly before the time of Chaucer. A passage from this writer runs : CARRIAGES. 27 To-morrow ye shall on hunting fare, And ride, my daughter, in a chare. It shall be covered with velvet red, And cloth of fine gold all about your head ; With damask white and azure blue, Well diaper'd with lilies new. A luxuriously appointed ' chare,' truly, though one would suppose too delicately finished to be used for following the hunt through the mire and slush of the country. The chare may probably be taken as the rough and early form of the vehicle which afterwards came to be known as the chariot. With all the decorations described by the poet, who we may suppose had seen something like such a carriage, and did not evolve it all out of his imagination, it must be assumed that the ' chare ' was not open if it were, indeed, one shudders at the thought of rain ; but it seems to be noted as a curiosity that the carriage in which Frederick III. entered Frankfort in 1474 was closed. Probably in days long before umbrellas were thought of, our ancestors did not mind the wet, though, to provide a shelter for a carriage, a cover or awning of some kind or other cannot have been any severe tax on the inven- tive powers of the early carriage- builders. Jumping again into the seventeenth century for, interesting as are many of the records of primitive carriages, we must not linger too long with so extensive a subject before us we find that, partly because roads had a little improved, and partly because the country was growing generally richer, wheeled vehicles were becoming, or indeed had become, so common that a bill was introduced to restrain the excessive use of carriages. If with prophetic eye some man who read the bill could have imagined what Hyde Park Corner would be like on a June afternoon towards the end of the nineteenth century, the result would have been amazing indeed. One would be glad to know what Bacon thought of the bill, and whether it was discussed by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Fletcher Beaumont was too young to know anything of state policy in 28 DRIVING. 1 60 1 and the company which was accustomed then to meet. One plea in favour of the bill was, that the watermen in the river lost custom when people travelled by road. The bill was, however, rejected on the second reading, and if there were no better argument against it than that of the watermen, this was obviously just, for with equal pertinence the coach-builders might have complained that their trade was injured by men who plied for hire in boats. On this head much might be added as to the mischievous effects of taxing carriages in these days, for this is a tax on the products of industry which greatly restrains its development, reduces the number of skilled artisans who would be employed, and renders precarious the employment of those actually en- gaged. The defeat of the motion inspired new vigour into the little class which may be spoken of as the coaching men of the early seventeenth century, and in 1610 an enterprising person hit on the germ of that idea the development of which has filled the streets with cabs and omnibuses, and covered the world with railways. All that is known of him is that he was a Pomeranian ; what he did was to establish a line of coaches and waggons to run between Edinburgh and Leith, and about the year named he obtained a Royal patent, allowing him the sole right of the running for fifteen years. The sort of coach which the Pomeranian put on the road may be judged by an engraving published by Visscher at Antwerp in 1616. The wheels are very broad, the tires stout, and so far as can be made out there are no springs. There seems to be room inside for six or eight persons. It is covered by a sort of canopy with the ends hanging down over the sides of the coach the matt- rial cannot be made out. A baggage rack is shown, let down much after the fashion of the back of a contemporary dog-cart. It must have been a terribly heavy vehicle, especially of course on such roads as those which it was doomed to travel, and yet it is drawn by only one horse, which moreover is ridden by the driver if the term may be employed. What makes the picture CARRIAGES. 29 puzzling, is the statement in ' Fyne Morrison's Itinerary,' pub- lished the year after Visscher's engraving was issued, that travellers in the south and west of England, in Scotland, and- elsewhere, hired post horses at stations which were established some ten miles from each other, and sometimes covered a dis- tance between these post-houses at the rate of ten miles an hour. These post-horses must have been ridden ; the coach in the engraving would surely have taken nearly thrice the time mentioned. Soon after this, about 1623, appeared the most desperate onslaught on the coaches that has ever been published. John Taylor, the 'Water Poet,' was the author of the attack a pamphlet called ' The World runnes on Wheeles ; or, Oddes betwixt Carts and Coaches' but it is to be feared that his savage satire was based on the grievance which induced the watermen to support the bill already mentioned, and of course the Water Poet felt strongly on the subject. Carts he would permit. Certain things had to be carried, no doubt, but as to coaches, the reader is bidden to 'beware of a coach as you would doe of a tyger, a wolfe, or a leuiathan.' There is not space here even to hint at a tithe of the evils which the coach was asserted to do, though the pleas on behalf of 'us poor water- men' make the meaning of the assault plain enough. It is odd, however, to read the catalogue of the dangers which are declared to be brought about by coaches, and to compare it with the sort of thing that was written about railway trains when they were first introduced, to the detriment of coaches. The reader is doubtless familiar with the picture there are indeed more than one of the same subject which shows the driver of a coach pointing to a train which has run off the line and is toppling down an embankment. The coach was then regarded as the safest of conveyances, but Taylor cries out that ' the mischiefes that have bin done by them are not to be numbred, as breaking of legges and armes, overthrowing downe hilles, over bridges, running ouer children, lame and old people ; as Henrie the Fourth of France (the father of the king that 3 o DRIVING. now reigneth) he and his queen were once like to have beene drowned, the coach overthrowing beside a bridge, and to prove that a coach owed him an vnfortunate tricke, he was some few yeears after his first niche, most unhumanely and trae- trously murdered in one by Rauiliache in the streets at Paris.' To alight after a long journey in a springless coach, battered, aching and shaken, and then to read John Taylor's pamphlet, must have been a distressing day's work. It was most probably in consequence of the absence of springs that horse-litters continued in vogue so long. The litter seems to have been introduced by the Normans in the eleventh century, and mention is made of this style of convey- ance at least as late as 1680. The 'litter' was slung on long poles, and borne by two horses, the hind one occasionally having his head almost touching the body of the 'carriage.' One can imagine how this must have shaken. We know how the action of a single horse would shake, in fact, and the jolting of the pair must have been rough indeed. If then a wounded man was sometimes carried in a litter rather than in a coach or carriage of some kind, it can only be presumed that the average carriage was an exceedingly uncomfortable con- veyance. The precise date of the invention of springs does not seem to be traceable, and this is unfortunate, for their introduction was of the utmost importance, and indeed revolutionised carriage- building, making what had hitherto been a rough business into an art. The approach to perfection if it has been already reached, indeed was slow. Springs, however, were known of what sort is not clear and employed in 1665 ; for Pepys, in his ' Diary,' writing in that year, speaks of having ridden for curiosity in the carriage thus equipped of one Colonel Edward Blount. The diarist went in the newly fitted coach uphill and over cart ruts, ' and found it pretty well, but not so easy as he pretends.' This is very cool commendation, and seems to imply that there was not so much difference between springless and springed carriages. The days of the luxurious CARRIAGES. 31 C spring were not yet. It is clear, however, that men who were connected with carriages that is to say, builders, owners, and drivers were hard put to it to overcome certain obvious discomforts and inconveniences, and of all the new devices tried, perhaps the oddest spectacle is suggested by another writing in the immortal 'Diary;' indeed, the word ' odd ' is actually applied to it by Pepys. The idea was to let the coachman ' sit astride upon a pole over the horses.' This, Pepys thought, was 'a pretty odd thing,' and he seems to employ the word 'pretty ' in its most accurate significance, and not as a sort of satirical 'very.' The pole in question must have been a sort of bowsprit fixed on to the front of the carriage, and one can only faintly imagine the Four-in-Hand Club meeting at the Magazine with all the members in this seamanlike attitude. The notion does not seem to have lingered, but there was a period, long prior of course to the days when the worthies whose careers on the box are recorded in other chapters were in their prime, when a conveyance from Devon to London was drawn by six horses harnessed one before the other, and driven by a man who walked. This was admittedly a waggon, and not a coach. By degrees it was perceived that the best place for the driver is that in which he is now usually found, and late in the seventeenth century we find him on an early substitute for the box with a footboard amongst other luxuries. There were no windows to the vehicle, but there were curtains, and the vague idea of springs had been so far improved upon that the body of the carriage was suspended as if with a regard for the comfort of the occupants. At that time also carriages were often lavishly decorated with elaborate carvings, paintings, and gildings. This was far from new ; indeed, many of almost the earliest chariots of unknown dates were distinguished by efforts of artists ; but for a good many years the main idea of the carriage seems to have remained unaltered. The varieties of carriages which are now common were not dreamed of : there appears, in fact, to have been very little variety. If a man wanted a carriage to ride in, it was assumed that he wanted something 32 DRIVING in the nature of a coach. If the conveyance of packages was desired, there were waggons, but for all purposes of human transport there was ' the coach ; ' and one coach was very much like another, except that royal and distinguished personages had more luxurious vehicles than those who were less wealthy or less anxious about maintaining their position, for the last century was marked by much display. If a great man rode in his carriage there was something to show that he was a great man, something about his carriage, and horse, and attendants, as well as his dress ; unpretentiousness and disregard of outward show were fashions of a later day and have so remained. Now the Prince of Wales goes about in his brougham, and except to the critical eye which may discern that it is a remarkably well- turned-out equipage though this is not entirely a distinguish- ing mark, as very many other gentlemen's carriages are in the most perfect taste also there is nothing to suggest that a royal personage is the occupant. Two-wheeled carriages were not, of course, unknown after having been used for thousands of years. There was, for instance, ' the sedan cart/ a sedan chair with the poles extended so as to form shafts and also continued at the back so as to meet an axle. There was just room inside for one sitter, who must have been jolted terribly, for the chair was fastened on to the pole with nothing in the shape of a spring to ease the motion. The * driver ' rode the single horse, his legs outside the shafts. It may possibly have been some ingenious but suffering traveller in a sedan cart who devised the gig, an illustration of which in 1754 shows the germ of a whole array of two-wheeled carriages. The early gig may easily have been developed from the vehicle just described. Instead of the sternly straight shafts, there is a curve in those fixed to the later carriage ; but what is more to the point is the fact that the body of the gig is hung on leather straps attached to iron braces which rise from the hind extremity of the shafts. The wheels were heavy and rather low ; there is a curious appearance of clumsiness about it ; still it was an advance, a distinct invention, and paved the way to the CARRIAGES. 33 introduction of that long string of vehicles which had their origin in the coach and gig, and now include Coach l Mail Phaeton Curricle Chariot Fourgon Landau Barouche Omnibus Dog Cart Park Phaeton Waggonette Britzska Mail Phaeton T Cart Sociable Brougham Basket Carriage Sociable Landau Double Brougham Car Victoria or Clarence Sulky Buggy Post Chaise Stanhope Hansom Cabriolet Tilbury Char-a-banc Cab not to go into the endless varieties of foreign vehicles. The most useful of all carriages in ante-railroad days was certainly the mail phaeton. You could travel a hundred miles far quicker in one with a pair posting than you could with four in a light carriage, luggage to fit it, a drop box under the front seat, a light leather-covered basket under the head when it was let down, a light basket, tarpaulin covered, to hook on behind, a light box along the dash, or splash board, to hold watch, pistols, anything. Built with a perch, it was very strong, and would not look like the modern ugly but useful phaeton, but for travelling first rate. Straps similar to those upon which the gig was hung had been in use for many years. The steel spring, however, was now about to make its appearance, and towards the middle of the century a coach which ran between Chelmsford and London by way of Brentwood and Ilford, doing the journey in five hours, is announced as ' a handsome Machine, with steel springs for the ease of passengers and the Conveniency of the Country.' It is safe to infer that at first springs were not used on public coaches, and the invention may, therefore, be put down as prior to the year 1754, though unless Hogarth was out in his draw- ing of ' The Country Inn Yard' (1755) coaches without springs lingered after the introduction of the ' handsome Machine ' that went to the capital of Essex. 1 The word ' drag ' is often employed as if it represented a distinct type of vehicle. A drag, however, is merely a slang name for a gentleman's coach. D 34 DRIVING. About this period, however, there appeared a novelty in the streets, which is said to have 'set all London in an agitation.' 1 The astonishment of London is readily comprehensible, for the 'high-flier phaeton/ as the vehicle which created the sensa- tion is called, is certainly a most remarkable affair. The high- flier was a four-wheeled vehicle, and the fore wheels must have been nearly five feet high, if we may assume that the horses which drew the carriage were a little over fifteen hands but the artist may not be very accurate ; for on this calculation the driver, and the lady in the protruding bonnet who accompanies him, would be very tall persons the hind wheels were at least eight feet in diameter, and the floor or shell of the carriage was considerably above this, so that the driver's feet were far higher than the ears of his horses. The body of the carriage, if body be the right word for what is in fact only a floor with a seat, was supported on curved iron standards, or springs. Access was obtained, not by a balloon as might have been supposed, but by a ladder. Once enthroned, the driver was so far from his work, that he can have had no control whatever over the leaders. The high-flier was drawn by a team of four horses, and it is quite certain that the very long whip which he is represented as carrying would not have enabled him to touch the leaders. If the reader can imagine an extraordinarily long- bodied coach, driven by someone perched on the back seat, some idea of the guidance of the high-flier will be obtained. As for the comforts of the carriage, Mr. Adams, himself a coach- builder, says, ' 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 a theatre. None but an extremely robust con- stitution could stand the violent jolting of such a vehicle over the stones of a paved road ; ' and it must have been so. We have described the high-flier for the reason that it 1 The account of this carriage is taken from a book called The World on Wheels, by the late Mr. Ezra Stratton, of New York, to which the author of this chapter desires to express acknowledgment. The original model of Sir William Chambers, still in good preservation, is in possession of a coach- maker at Bath. CARRIAGES. 35 illustrates a violent alteration and a new departure in carriage- building, eccentrically expressed no doubt, but still noteworthy. Till almost up to this time, very little in the way of springs had been known. Travellers must have suffered sorely from the jolts necessarily incidental to a journey, particularly in days when roads were wretched, but as a rule they had put up with it, not supposing that improvement was possible. Thus, indeed, people do put up with things. Travellers, doubtless, supposed that if any alteration for the better could be made in the system of travelling, those whose business it was to find carriages and horses would point and lead the way ; these gentry for their part were quite contented to let things be as they were so long as travellers stood it and they had no alternative but to stand it, that is to say, to ride in the public or private vehicle, as the case might be, with which the makers provided them. As a general rule, the fact of the high-flier apart, the Eng- lish carriage was remarkable for its sturdiness and solidity for what in the present day would be considered its clumsiness. A state carriage, ordered by George III. in 1762, was, in 1873, on view at South Kensington, and was among the most remark- able examples of carriage-building ever seen. The weight of the vehicle was nearly four tons, its length 24 feet (pole 12 feet in addition), width 8 ft. 3 in., and height 12 feet. It was in every way as elaborate as it could be made, a circumstance which will be understood when it is said that of the total cost, 7,6527. i6s. <3\d.^ the largest item, 2,5007., went to the carver. The whole bill included : Coachmaker Carver Gilder Painter Laceman . Chaser Harnessmaker . 1,763 2,500 933 315 737 666 385 15 14 10 4 15 d. 6 7 6 Mercer Bitmaker Milliner Saddler Woollen draper Cover-maker . 202 99 31 10 4 3 s. 5 9 3 6 i 9 d. io, 6 4 6 6 6 7,652 16 D 2 94 DRIVING. CARRIAGES. 37 This, moreover, was the taxed bill, after between 3007. and 400/1 had been struck off. A writer about this period (1765) describes the whip of the coachman who drove the ' flying machines ' drawn by six horses, between Dover and London, twenty-eight leagues a day. ' The coach-whip,' he says, ' is nothing else but a long piece of whalebone covered with hair, and with a small cord at the end of it.' Such a whip could not have been effective, and indeed, according to the traveller, it was not. ' It only serves to make a show, as their horses scarce ever feel it,' he writes. The ' flying machine,' in spite of its name, was doubtless so heavy that no speed was sought. The length of the * day ' in which those eighty-four miles were covered is not stated. The next carriage we hear of is the barouche, a sturdy species of box so near the ground that no step seems to have been necessary ; there is a perch for a footman to stand behind ; the coachman, if the picture be correct, is very far forward over his horses. There are hoods, made apparently much after the existing fashion. The barouche is, in fact, in all essentials very much like a coach with a movable instead of a fixed top. During all this time the roads were so bad that ruts of in- credible depth are described. When a waggon stuck fast, as waggons had a habit of doing, it required twenty or thirty horses fastened together to drag the vehicle out again unless of course something ' gave.' A Me Adam was sorely wanted, but was not forthcoming, and instead of seeking to improve the roads, a vast deal of misplaced ingenuity was expended in fashioning new wheels. There was a controversy as to whether wheels should be cylindrical or conical marvellous as it now seems that the latter eccentricity could ever have been seriously put forward and of many strange contrivances the most ex- traordinary was perhaps devised by a Mr. Robert Bealson in 1796. His desire was to prevent the wheels of carriages from making ruts ; and this he proposed to do by fixing a broad and presumably a heavy roller to the bottom of the carriage. 38 DRIVING. . This roller was to be an inch and a half from the ground, so that when the going was good it would not touch the surface. When, on the other hand, the wheels would otherwise have sunk into ruts, the weight of the carnage would be supported on the roller, so that the wheels could not sink below the surface of the ground. As the inventor pointed out, By making the protection a little higher than the lower level of the wheels, it is evident that on good hard roads or streets the wheels will always bear the weight of the load, nor can they make any ruts, or sink into old ones, however deep they may be ; while the middle of the road remains firm, for the protection [the * road pro- tector ' was the name by which the inventor described his roller] will always roll upon the middle, which will certainly be a much easier drag out for the horses than if the wheels were in deep ruts. To all but the ingenious Mr. Bealson it must have seemed out of the question that horses should thus be obliged to drag about on all occasions a huge roller weighing several hundredweight. The objection was, of course, fatal to the invention, and carriage-makers continued to build sound and solid, but tremendously heavy, vehicles, which would resist the strains to which they must have been so often subjected. The difficulties in the way of easy travelling must have seemed insuperable ; but, on the whole, coach-builders were very well satisfied with things as they were, not perhaps recognising the possibility of such roads and carriages as those with which the present generation have been made familiar. An eccentricity which may here be mentioned, though it came later than Mr. Bealson's road protector in 1828, to be exact was a device invented by Mr. Jean Tellier of America, to prevent the upsetting of carriages. A rod, hinged to the top of the vehicle, hung down on either side, the end, furnished with a rowel like that of a huge spur, coming down to within two or three inches of the ground, when the carriage was upright. When, however, by means of any accident, the coming off of a wheel for instance, the carriage was thrown over sideways, the rod would either stick into the ground and CARRIAGES. 39 so save the fall, or if the rowel ran instead of sticking by reason of hard ground, the fall would at least be broken. These swinging rods were of course a great eyesore, and it is by no means certain that, if the horse had fallen in a two- wheeled vehicle, Mr. Tellier's invention would have been any good. Writing in 1794, Mr. W. Felton, the author of 'A Treatise on Carriages and Harness,' declares that 'the art of coach making within the last half-century has arrived to a very high degree of perfection, with respect both to the beauty, strength, and elegance of the machine.' Compared with the works of to-day it will be seen that Mr. Felton and his readers, if they agreed with him, were somewhat easily satisfied, though it must be admitted that a vast improvement had been made, and the town or travelling coach of the last year of the eigh- teenth century was a very decent vehicle. By this time the S or ' whip ' spring, from which in due course the C spring was developed, had come into comparatively general use, at least for the best class of carriage. Probably the coaches rocked a good deal unless the roads were exceptionally good ; still, regarded by the light of the past, it must be admitted that Mr. Felton was justified. The author's enthusiasm for the landau, which had recently come into vogue, was not without warrant. It was in fact an open coach, ' an open and close carriage in one,' as Mr. Felton puts it. From the landau to the landaulet was a natural step. Some persons did not want seats for four, and the landaulet did away with the two front seats. There was indeed much variety in the carriages of the period. The coach was a landau with an immovable top ; as a rule it was richly decorated, though this does not affect the structure of the carriage. Into technical points it is not our purpose here to go, and we need only passingly mention the somewhat elaborate arrangement of springs, all of course tending to ease the motion, which was found in the coaches of about 1796. The sulky, again, was a contracted gig made to carry one only, hence its name. 40 DRIVING. All these carriages, however, it will have been perceived, had what those for whom this book was designed will regard as one great drawback. The master needed a coachman. He could not drive himself ; at least, it was not intended that he should do so. Riding in carriages has been looked on at various times as contemptibly effeminate; if a man drove his own horse it was quite a different affair, and the taste for driving was now beginning to spread. The phaeton had, in fact, already come into vogue, though, so far as can be ascertained in the early carriage of this class, there was no hind seat. The body of the vehicle was placed high above, and exactly over the front wheels, and they were attached to the hind wheels, which were of considerable height, by a perch of wood strengthened by plates of iron. There was a hood, which could be raised or lowered after the existing fashion. The pony phaeton, on the other hand, had the body over the hind wheels. In country places, carriages very much like what was probably the earliest pony phaeton may still be seen. With the body lowered and seats in front, this was developed into a trap that is in very general use. A once highly popular carriage was the curricle. It is said to have been of Italian origin, and found its way to England early in the present century, to become extremely popular, if popular be the correct term to employ in describing a vehicle which was very luxurious, inasmuch as it was chiefly a show carriage and, in spite of its lightness, was drawn by a pair of horses. The curricle was a two-wheeled carriage with a hood, and the only two-wheeled vehicle used with two horses abreast. In his ' English Pleasure Carriages,' Mr. W. B. Adams expresses an opinion that The shape of the body is extremely unsightly, the hinder curve and the sword-case are positively ugly, the elbow and head are ungrace- fully formal, and the crooked front line and dashing iron in the worst possible taste. . . . The mode of attaching the horse is pre- cisely that of the chariot car, only more elegant. A pole is fixed to the square frame and is suspended from a bright steel bar, resting in CARRIAGES. 41 a fork on each horse's back. In spite of the ungraceful form of the vehicle, the effect of the whole was very good. The carriage fatigues the horses much less than one with four wheels, on account of its superior lightness ; but it has been wholly disused of late years, probably on account of the risk attached to it if the horses become restive. Mr. Adams' book was published in 1837, and he was scarcely correct in his assertion as to the complete disuse of the curricle, for it is on record that as late as 1846 one was driven by the Duke of Wellington. l His strictures on the 'unsightly' and even the * positively ugly ' appearance of the curricle do not agree with the fact that it was driven by the most fastidious people; indeed Mr. Adams admits that 'it is not essentially necessary that the vehicle should be ugly in its form, for it affords facilities for constructing the most elegant of all vehicles.' He goes on to say, ' a curricle of another form was built many years back for the well-known Mr. Coates. 2 The shape of the body was that of a classic sea-god's car, and it was constructed in copper. The vehicle was very beautiful in its outline, though disfigured by the absurdity of its ornamental work.' It will be understood that all these types of vehicles were made with varied details, but not much need be said of the 'whisky,' the 'caned whisky,' and the 'grasshopper chaise whisky,' which had their origin in the curricle. When used for travelling, the curricle proper had conveniences for affixing a 1 Up to the time of his death, April 1854, Field-Marshal the ist Marquis of Anglesey constantly drove his curricle. The well-known and much-liked and fashionable physician and wit, Dr. Quin, drove one many years later, and to this date, 1888, Lord Tollemache still drives his. It is a light, elegant, com- fortable vehicle. The only difficulty is to get horses good enough, for they must be exactly the same height and shape, and must step high and work together. 2 This was the amateur actor who made ridiculous attempts on the stage and gained the satirical name of Romeo Coates. In the late Mr. Dutton Cook's ' On the Stage ' he is described as ' the occupant of a shell-shaped chariot' Mr. Cook was not an expert in carriages, and doubtless should have said curricle 'drawn by white horses, the panels and harness plentifully blazoned with his crest a cock with the motto "While I live I'll crow!" a mob following him yelling " Cock-a-doodle-do ! " ' 42 . DRIVING. trunk behind or, as Mr. Adams calls it, and doubtless cor- rectly, for he was an expert the sword-case. The 'caned whisky ' had cane-work sides, and the ' grasshopper ' was made as light as was, or as seemed, compatible with safety. The curricle was to a great extent ousted by the cabriolet, a two-wheeled carriage imported from France early in the present century. Mr. Adams does not give the precise date ; in fact, the omission of dates somewhat destroys the value of his book as a work of reference, but this may probably be fixed as on the conclusion of the peace of 1815. The description of the cabriolet may be borrowed. It is, in reality, he says, A regeneration of the old one-horse chaise in a newer and more elegant form, which has been borrowed, together with the name, from the French ; and, as is common in most such cases, it has been improved on. The principal reason why the carriage is so much liked is its great convenience. It carries two persons comfortably seated, sheltered from sun and rain there is a movable hood, it should here be added yet with abundant fresh air, and with nearly as much privacy as a close carriage if the curtains be drawn in front. It can go in and out of places where a two-horse carriage with four wheels cannot turn ; and a boy is carried behind, cut off from communication with the riders, save when they wish to alight and give the vehicle into his charge. Though the cabriolet is not very often seen now-a-days, having in its turn been supplanted for the most part by some varieties of dog-cart, some readers are doubtless familiar with the vehicle. Between the high C springs is a small padded board on which the groom stands, holding on by straps fastened to the back of the carriage. The motion, consequent on the method of hanging the body, is admitted by Mr. Adams to be a disadvantage. As regards make and shape, ' the peculiar feature of the cabriolet is the graceful form of its body, which resembles that of a nautilus shell, and with which the shape of the head harmonises well.' The knee-flap is stretched tightly across a frame. 'The shaft forms a graceful curve, and the spring CARRIAGES. 43 behind falls well in with it. The spring beneath the shaft is also well adapted to the line.' Mr. Adams, who has a some- what stern eye, declares the step to be unsightly, but this is a matter of opinion; there would certainly seem to be something wanting without the step. The shafts are curved so that the point may be at the level of the horse's shoulder, while the hinder part does not prevent easy access to the vehicle. A well- appointed cabriolet, such as was driven by Count d'Orsay and the Earl of Chesterfield about 1840, was an equipage worth Lord Calthorpe's cabriolet. looking at. It necessitated a handsome and expensive horse, a good and neat driver, and above all a well-bred 'tiger,' for such was the name of the lad who stood behind while his master held the reins, and who waited at the horse's head in stately watchfulness when he alighted. The species seems now extinct unless the present race of jockeys claim them as ancestors for they were miniature men of good figure, smail and muscular, full of courage, and mostly well up to their duties. Contemporary with the cabriolet were the Stanhope and 44 DRIVING. Tilbury, both named after their designers, the former having been built about 1815 for the Hon. Fitzroy Stanhope. The other, with seven springs instead of four, was lighter looking, though in reality heavier. The Tilbury was driven with a horse of different breed from that which was employed for a cabriolet. He was smaller, had a less showy action, the groom invariably sat on the left side of his master, and always with his arms crossed on his breast waiting orders. The technical reasons why the Tilbury, in spite of its appearance, was, in reality, heavier than the Stanhope need not be given here, but as a matter of fact it was, with the exception of the cabriolet, the heaviest two-wheeled pleasure carriage constructed. The Dennett, said to have been named ' after the then Miss Dennett whose elegant stage dancing was so much in vogue about the time the vehicle was first used,' is another similar carriage, and so is the gig, described by Mr. Adams as 'the lightest one- horse vehicle used in England.' It is simply an open-railed chair fixed on the shafts and supported on two side springs, the hinder ends of which were connected to the loop iron by leather traces to give more freedom to the motion. Hence comes the early form of dog-cart. Gigs, we are informed, were occasionally 'used for shooting, when the lockers were made with Venetian blinds to carry the dogs, and then it became a dog-cart.' The type has altered in several respects, and dog-carts are now of various kinds which are too familiar to need classification. While on the subject of two-wheeled carriages, it may be well to include the popular hansom. The inventor was a Mr. Joseph Hansom, a Leicestershire architect. In 1834 he obtained a patent for his new and very original form of cabriolet. 1 Omitting technicalities, the points of the invention were that the body of the hansom was much nearer the ground than had hitherto been conveniently practicable in any carriage, 1 Fifty years ago the cab was a sort of cabriolet, with a fixed hard head, and the driver sat outside on the off side on a little perch. There were no four- wheel cabs, the only other vehicle ' on the rank ' being the pair-horse hackney coach. CARRIAGES. 45 that the carriage was easy of entrance and exit, and excep- tionally safe, as the title 'Hansom's Patent Safety Cab' implies. Since Mr. Hansom designed his cab various improvements have been made in nearly every particular. The expertness of a really first-class driver, who seems, at least so the timid passenger sometimes thinks, to squeeze his way through gaps only about half wide enough to admit his passage, is some- times wonderful to behold. 1 The latest development of the hansom comes near to such perfection as a carriage of this kind can reach. In the earlier hansoms the ease of entrance and exit was only comparative, in later examples not only has this been modified, but the two other drawbacks, the windows in the first place, and the difficulty of communication with the driver, have been obviated. The window was under the control of the driver ; when let down the breathing space was unpleasantly limited, and the driver could only be spoken to by opening a somewhat awkwardly placed little trap in the roof, though he might be directed by means of a stick or umbrella poked out in front. Of late years the first diffi- culty has been solved by making a circular window which the passenger can raise or lower, and when down it greatly increases the breathing space. The driver can also be guided by means of two little contrivances like fixed bell-pulls, so devised that when the right or left is pulled, as the case may be, a metal hand springs out upon the top of the cab pointing either right or left, and it is understood that pulling both together is an order to stop. A speaking-tube is also sometimes fixed, and hansoms run easily if well horsed and hung. The proper running of a ' hansom ' depends much on the horse's harness and manner of harnessing. The horse should be a short, 1 The hansom is, however, the easiest carriage to drive through a crowd or narrow space, always excepting four horses in a coach, and for much the same reason. The driver of the hansom, from where he sits, sees the box and cap of each of his wheels, and is behind them, and therefore sees if there is room or not. In driving a carriage or coach with four horses, where your bars can go your coach can go, for they are one inch wider from end to end than the two caps or boxes of your wheels are from one outside line to the other. B. 46 DRIVING. quick-stepping animal that answers the bit instantly. He should have plenty of room in the shafts ; the back band should be adjusted loosely to enable the shafts to play freely. Much depends upon whether the horse fits the carriage. The expense has hitherto rendered it impossible to put these new hansoms on the streets for public hire. Reverting to four-wheeled carriages, the firm popularity of the phaeton must be noted. About the year 1830 we find the extremely servicable mail phaeton, the name arising from the fact that the under gear was made with a wood perch on springs, like those used for the mail coaches. The carriage of 1830 would now seem a curiously heavy vehicle ; otherwise it had much to recommend it. Amongst other things, it was easy to reverse the seats, moving the hooded front seat to the back if the passenger did not wish to drive and desired to make himself more comfortable : it will be understood that the groom's seat was then placed in front and he drove. Whether the phaeton was the safest of carriages depended a good deal upon the driving ; it was not at all a difficult process to turn it over in going too sharply round a corner, and some acrobatic dexterity was necessary for gaining the hind seat. Mr. Adams considered a phaeton ' not very grace- ful,' but this is a matter of opinion. Most persons will pro- bably consider it a handsome and ' workmanlike ' carriage, certainly preferable in appearance to the britzska, a German invention, introduced about 1815, after the peace, when Europe was reopened to travellers, of which Mr. Adams highly ap- proves. In his book he states that ' it has become the most common of all carriages.' They are now made higher and hung on four elliptic springs. In the year 1837 a vehicle was introduced which certainly has become the commonest of closed carriages the brougham. The current story goes that Lord Brougham's chariot and pair not being ready one day when he wanted to go out, he brought his practical mind to bear on the subject, reflected that it did not really require two horses to draw a man about, that a footman CARRIAGES. 47 was not necessary on all occasions, and that thereupon he went to his coachmaker, Mr. Robinson, of Mount Street, and explained his idea ; the result being the manufacture of this most com- fortable and convenient carriage. This, however, is not accu- rate history. Lord Brougham did not invent the carriage, which long before 1837 was a common vehicle in the streets of Paris or to be hired as a voiture de place, an equivalent expression to what was called in London in those days a glass coach : i.e. a carriage and horses you could hire for the day or week. Lord Brougham had the good sense to import one from Paris, and to have one built by an English coach-builder, who, whilst sticking nearly to the lines of the original, made it more elegant, lighter, and stronger. The form is simple and sensible in the extreme, and as we have seen of late years is capable of all sorts of modifications. Double broughams and single broughams are now equally common, as are broughams drawn by one horse and by a pair. With the roof made strong and fitted with a basket, a good deal of luggage can be carried. There is room on the box with the coachman for a servant or other passenger, and according to the construction of the front seat the brougham will hold three or four inside with more or less ease. The tendency of the day is to have broughams for London use as light as possible, without adopting eccentricities of lightness, as Englishmen consider them, such as distinguish certain American carriages. The interior appointments may be as tasteful and luxurious as the owner pleases or cares to pay for. A speaking-tube is an occasional fitting (though unless care is used it becomes crushed and renders the voice inaudible a little bell is a better means of communicating with the driver), as is a reading-lamp fastened to the back of the vehicle ; a mirror is general now even in hansom cabs ; card-pockets and little cigar trays of various sizes may be put here and there, and in a single brougham a little basket is often arranged in front. Of course, the doors open on the inside, with self-acting spring locks. Well-hung on easy springs, it is difficult to imagine a more thoroughly useful carriage. 48 DRIVING. About 1842 or 1843, Mr. Lovell, coach-builder of Amers- ham, Bucks, built what is now so generally known as a waggonette for Lord Curzon, and Mr. Holmes, of Derby, built one for the Earl of Chesterfield, and in the year 1845 one was made under the superintendence of the late Prince Consort for the use of Her Majesty and the Royal family, by the late Mr. George Hooper, of London. The new vehicle proved a rival to the phaeton, though there are many persons who object to riding sideways, and in the waggonette proper the passengers in the body of the carriage have their backs to the wheels. Fitted with a movable hood the waggonette becomes a closed carriage, and though lacking the style of the phaeton, there is much to be said in favour of waggonettes for country use. A few years afterwards, in the summer of 1850, another royal carriage, which has since attained great popularity, was first introduced into England, though the vehicle was not quite a novelty to those who were familiar with the summer street cabs of Paris. This was the Victoria, not precisely it may be the vehicle which the reader will first picture to himself, for the Victoria with a seat in front for the driver came after- wards. The earliest example, now in question, was a pony phaeton to hold two, one of whom drove. The builder was Mr. Andrews, then Mayor of Southampton. When taken to Osborne the vehicle was warmly approved, and it is on record that ' the Queen and Prince expressed to the Mayor their entire satisfaction with the style, elegance, and extraordinary lightness, and construction of the carriage, which scarcely weighed three hundredweight.' The fore wheels were 18 inches in height, the hind 30 inches, the body was of cane a fashion which is not universally approved. Very similar park phaetons were, how- ever, in use in the royal establishments at Windsor in the time of King William IV. consequently before 1837. King George IV. used to drive one. Except for the absence of a movable hood and the canework body, this Victoria was much like the low park phaeton of to-day. In course of time this developed into CARRIAGES. 49 the Victoria with a seat for the coachman, the vehicle which is at present as popular among open carriages as the brougham is among closed. The latest development of the barouche, a carriage with a movable hood, a seat, suspended on C springs, and a driver's seat much like that of a landau, need not be described. Nor is it necessary to say much about the sociable landau, the square head of which can be lowered so as to make it an open carriage, or raised and fastened by catches at the point of juncture, so making a carriage much resembling the coach of former days, but far lighter ; for after the vast improvement made in the roads by the adoption of McAdam's system vehicles were improved correspondingly. Adams considered the barouche a very different affair, as will readily be understood, from the carriage of the same name in use nearly a century before the principal of all open carriages, and an equal authority declares the landau to be the handsomest of all C spring carriages, and the beau-ideal of vehicular luxury. The barouche is certainly the more finished and handsome of the two, for the top of the landau, when the carriage is open, lies back in somewhat clumsy fashion ; but then the comfort of the closed carriage is often great. Happily we have not to decide which of the two the man in search of the best obtainable carriage would do best to buy. The coach is regarded by many as par excellence the first of English vehicles. The measurements of an ordinary road coach, although they differ considerably from those of some of the coaches seen about the parks, &c., nowadays, are no doubt best adapted for speed, strength, and safety combined. The following figures are taken from one of the best running road coaches, made by most scientific builders, but they need not, therefore, be put down as figures to be invariably adopted ; they constitute rather a fair average guide. The length of the pole may be put as 10 ft. 8 in., and strange to say the entire length of the coach comes to within an inch of the same, viz. E 50 DRIVING. 10 ft. 9 in. ; the body being 4ft ioin., the hind boot 2 ft. 9 in., and the front 3 ft. 2 in. The splinter bar measures 6 feet, the main bar 3 ft. 9 in., and the leading bars 3ft. i in. each ; the front wheels are 3 ft. 2 in. in height, the hind wheels 4 feet ; dis- tance between front and hind wheels, 2 ft. 6 in. The height of coach, measuring to roof just over door, is 6 ft. 1 1 in., and the bottom of the coach is 2 ft. 9 in. from the ground ; the carriage or side springs are 2 ft. 4^ in., and the body or cross springs, which connect the above, 3ft. 1 1 in. The front boot is 3 ft. 2 in. wide, and the hind boot 3 ft. i in. ; the space between decks, from the bottom to the top of the coach inside, is 4 feet, and the distance between the wheels 5 ft. 8 in., the depth of foot-board 2 ft. i in., breadth 3 ft. 10 in. ; the height from ground at heel 5 feet, the slope upwards to the front being made to suit the size of the horses as well as in some cases the length of the coachman's legs. A coach built on these lines will follow well without rolling, and be, if not quite, nearly perfect. About foreign carriages we do not propose to say much. The examples of American vehicles engraved in the work already named, ' The World on Wheels,' strike us as remarkable for absolute inelegance. These include the Rockaway ; the Jenny Lind a gig body with a broad straight bottom and a hooded top on four high wheels, of almost the same height as the Concord waggon a driving seat placed about the middle of a raft on four wheels ; the New Rochelle waggon two ill-made gig seats, one behind the other fastened on to a large flat box ; the gentleman's road buggy, otherwise by reason of the shape of the body known as the coal-box, the four-wheeled cabriolet, and others. There seems happily to be little danger of the introduction into England of any of these curiously ungraceful vehicles. The Volante, the delight of the Cubans, is said to be so comfortable a carriage, and is so novel in construction, that a word may be said concerning it. A capital description is given by Mr. George Augustus Sala, in one of his books called * Under CARRIAGES. 51 the Sun.' He describes how, sitting one morning at breakfast in Havana, a black man rode by on a horse, whose tail was tied to the back of a high demi-peaked saddle with Moorish stirrups. For a time, as the writer humorously declares, nothing hap- pened. Then, ' slowly there came bobbing along a very small gig-body hung on very large C springs, and surmounted by an enormous hood. Stretched between the apron and the top of the hood, at an angle of forty-five degrees, was a kind of awning or tent of some silk material.' A pair of wheels large enough to run a proper coach, and a pair of long timber shafts supported the body ; but the chief peculiarity of the volante Mr. Sala does not mention, and that is the fact that the high wheels are placed at the very end the butt end of the shafts, which project some distance behind the hood and seat. If the motion of these carriages is as smooth and easy as those who have ridden in them protest, it is never certain that some such vehicle may not acquire European popularity, though scarcely in England, where eccentric foreign importations in the shape of carriages are not approved. The Norwegian cariole has some relationship to the volante, though there is no awning or hood ; the body rides on springs, and the principal distinction is that the wheels are not (neces- sary springs being employed) at the extremity of the shafts. The springs, however, are a comparatively modern addition, for carioles have been used for certainly more than two centuries, and formerly they more closely resembled an open volante. The Russian droschki is a curiosity for the reason that the passenger sits astride a cushioned seat, and the horse is harnessed with a bow-shaped contrivance, sometimes three or four feet high, over his neck. The object of this is to keep the shafts wide apart, support the reins, and do duty also to some extent in the manner of a bearing-rein. The custom of harnessing a pair of horses, one between the shafts and the other outside, is common in the Neapolitan E 2 52 DRIVING. calesso, but this is merely the roughest and crudest way of going to work, and, as a rule, Italian driving and drivers need only be noted as examples of what to avoid. l 1 Always excepting their postboys in the old days. Four horses and two boys used to take you ten miles an hour up and down most severe hills, or in the sandy plains of the Quadrilateral, or about Turin, and drove to perfection. B. CHAPTER III, THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. BY THE EARL OF ONSLOW. WITH regard to horses, as to most other things, tastes differ greatly. Many men have fancies of their own as to colour, shape, size, and so forth ; but our book would be in- complete if we did not include a chapter on the carriage-horse, in the hope that it may be found useful to a certain class of readers ; as, for instance, to those who may be meditating the establishment, for the first time, of a stable of their own. The difficulties and chicaneries of horse-dealing are notorious, but apart from this it is well that men should possess some know- ledge of the animals that they own. The inexperienced buyer 54 DRIVING. will desire to know what the horse which he proposes to pur- chase should look like ; secondly, what price ought to be paid for it, and, lastly, how he should treat it, and what work he may expect it to do. Many of the points and qualifications of a hunter are equally desirable in the carriage-horse ; but, inasmuch as the latter is not called upon to take any weight upon his back, it obviously is not necessary that his bones should be as big and as strong as an animal which is expected to carry fourteen or fifteen stone across country. Many a horse with straight shoulders and weak points which would lead to its rejection as a hunter might prove a serviceable, and even pass as a good-looking, harness horse. The value of a carriage-horse, therefore, is considerably less than that of a hunter. Perfection is scarcely attainable, and any approach to it is, of course, enormously expensive ; as a general rule, it may be said that the purchaser should seek rather for a horse with as few bad points as possible than for one with a great number of good points. Everything about a horse should be in proportion ; for instance, an animal with a big frame on light legs is likely soon to wear out the means which nature has given him to carry himself. The head should be small, broad across the forehead, and well-cut, the nose not projecting or ' Roman.' The eyes should be prominent, so as to give a wide range of sight, and should not show too much of the white, which is supposed to denote a tendency to vice ; the neck should be light, not too long, and the head so set on that the horse can carry it slightly bent, but neither pointing his nose straight out in front of him nor up in the air. The shoulder is of less importance for a harness than for a riding horse, but both bones should be placed at their proper angle, and the point of the shoulder should be nearly in a line with the point of the toe. The chest should be both deep and broad, giving full room for the vital parts of the animal. The upper bone of the leg should be large and thick, and longer in proportion than the lower bone ; muscular development should also be sought. The lower bone of the leg should be perfectly straight between THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. 55 the knee and the fetlock. The feet should be neither large nor small for the size of the animal ; the fore hoofs should form an angle of about fifty degrees with the ground, the hind feet being slightly more upright. If the feet are too straight it may be found that they are contracted. The back should be straight and short, the loins large and muscular, the quarters long and well let down, not short, round, and drooping ; the hock clean, well defined, and so placed as to come into the direct line through which the weight of the quarter is thrown. The hocks should be quite straight, neither turning outwards nor towards each other ; the hind legs below the hock as straight as the fore-leg. The middle of the side of the fore-arm should be in a line with the back of the heel ; and it should be possible to draw a line from the middle of the front of the fore- arm down the middle of the knee to the middle of the hoof. Very few gentlemen now drive a cabriolet, and of those who do fewer still have a really perfect ' cab ' horse, an animal which was once eagerly sought for. In shape he was supposed to be nearly faultless, to stand not less than sixteen hands high, and to have action which could hardly be too extravagant. It was a purely ornamental possession, usefulness being left out of the quesiion. A man who desired such a luxury did not care much what price he paid. It is the most expensive of single-harness horses. The chariot-horse often stands sixteen and a half or seven- teen hands high, and for colour bay or brown is usually pre- ferred. The purchaser may expect to be told that they have been bred in Yorkshire, but a great number of them come from abroad. The London dealers obtain many of them from Mecklenburg, North Germany, Antwerp and its neighbourhood. These horses have much improved during the last few years, and it is now difficult to tell them from home-bred ones. In- formation as to them is very difficult to obtain ; for it is, of course, to the dealers' interests to keep their history as dark as possible - but they do not possess the stamina that distinguishes the English-bred horse. 56 DRIVING. A dealer would expect to realise from two hundred to three hundred guineas each for a pair of such horses. They may perhaps come out a few times in the season, and owing to their size, the necessity of their being of good shape and having Bred in Yorkshire. ' high action, realise as high a price as a cabriolet horse ; if not too heavy and too big, however, a pair of these horses can be used not only on state occasions, but to draw a large barouche. Matched pairs likely to command high prices are rarely put up at Tattersall's. When they do find their way there THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. 57 they would, in the first instance, be offered in pairs, and if not so sold be subsequently offered separately. About eighty per cent, of those used at drawing-rooms, state balls, &c., are jobbed from the leading jobmasters in London, who buy them at different fairs when two or three years old, and after having kept and broken them in at their country farms, let them out on job at from 90 to 130 guineas per pair per annum. The ordinary terms for jobbing horses may be taken to be 100 guineas per annum, the horses being kept and shod at the hirer's stables. If less than a year, during the months of April, May, June, and July, 24 guineas for four weeks; during the rest of the year 16 guineas for four weeks. If kept and shod at the expense of the jobmaster an increase of 80 guineas per annum ; of 8 guineas per month during the season, and of 6 guineas per month out of the season would be the usual charge. The practice of jobbing hordes is a very old one, but in order to show the difference between prices at the commence- ment of last century and now, it may be interesting to quote an agreement between a jobmaster m St. Martin's-in-the- Fields and a gentleman in 1718.' The jobmaster, Charles Hodges, agrees to keep his coach and charriot and harness neat and clean, and in all manner of repair, at his own charge, and including wheels ; and in case the coach- man shall break the glasses of either, the said Charles Hodges shall be answerable for, and make good the same ; To serve him with a pair of good, strong, handsome, well-matched horses, to be valued between fifty and sixty pounds to his good liking and approbation, and also a good, honest, sober, creditable coach- man, who with the horses shall attend as often as he or his lady shall think fit, either into the city of London, the liberties of Westminster, or places adjacent. And if the said John B , or his family, shall have occasion to go into the countrey, the same Charles Hodges obliges himself by these presents to find him or them one or more pair of horses after the same rate per diem with the others, the said J. B allowing the said Charles Hodges 1 Notes and Queries, 1869, ii. 558. 58 DRIVING. half-a-crown a day more extraordinary expenses, every day he shall travel on the road and set up at an inn, the said C. Hodges finding the horses on such journey at his own charges ; And in case the coachman runs away with his livery, or loses his cloak, hammerclothes, seat covers, the seats in the coach, or toppings of the same, the said C. Hodges shall and will be answerable for and make good the same ; all the which premisses being performed on the part and behalf of the said C. Hodges, the said J. B does promise and agree to pay the said Hodges the sum of one hundred pounds of lawful British money, c. &c. After the state-coach horse in order of value comes the more usual pair of high-stepping carriage-horses, of which any number may be seen between Hyde Park Corner and Grosvenor Gate on a fine afternoon in the season. They need not be more than 15.3, should have good, though not extravagant, action, and match well both in colour, shape, and size. If required to horse a phaeton they should of course be lighter, and show more breeding ; instead of the high up and down action of the carriage-horse, they should rather have forward action, step and go well together, carrying their heads in the same way, and the owner should not be afraid to show as much of his animals as possible, by having his harness light and but little of it. The most useful of harness horses is that which is commonly described as 'a good trapper,' standing from 15 to 15.3 high, free and fast, suitable for a light phaeton, gig, or one of the many two-wheeled carriages described under different fancy names by the makers, and will fetch from sixty to eighty guineas at auction. We have more than once referred to bigb action, such as is often seen in the West End of London, and the presence of which in a horse induces the dealer to ask a high price for it. It is quite a mistake to suppose that there is any advantage in high action ; for appearance it is so far desirable that it is to a certain extent fashionable, but for real work it is a distinct drawback. In the first place, the horse loses time in lifting his feet up into the air, and consequently gets over less ground ; THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. 59 secondly, the concussion which his feet suffer every time he brings them down on the road cannot fail to prove detrimental to their soundness. Free forward action is not open to these objections. A horse which steps moderately without ' kicking over a sixpence ' on the one hand, nor jarring his feet on the other, is likely to prove the most useful, and last the longest. There are plenty of good sound horses such as this to be picked up for from 4o/. to 6o/., both in town and country. Though scarcely pertinent to the present inquiry, in dealing with the carriage-horse we should not allow it to be forgotten that even among harness horses there is a racehorse, and, although little known in this country, trotting and pacing matches in America are more popular and more patronised by the wealthy men in the States than flat-racing or steeplechasing. The trotting races are usually run in mile heats, the best three out of five, in harness ; the horses are driven in a light two- wheeled vehicle with large wheels, the driver sitting close to the horse, with his legs on each side of the flanks. The driver with the rug that he sits on has to scale 150 Ibs. The tracks are oval in shape, and at a distance of three feet from the inner side of the track measure an exact mile. The matches are always carefully timed, and penalties are imposed on horses that break from a trot into a run during the race. The records of each horse are carefully kept, and the great ambition of an owner of trotters is to beat the record. The best time ever made for a mile was the 2 min. 8} sec. in which Maud S. covered the distance, but there is a pacing record of 2 min. 6 sec. In addition to those kept in training for races in the States, a very great number are used by gentlemen for their private driving along the roads. Trotters are so little used as to be practically unknown in England ; a few have been introduced from America, but they have seldom repaid their importers for their trouble. American harness horses used to come over and be sold in England, realising good prices. Dealers have ex- pressed a desire to get them now, but the owners of such animals 60 DRIVING. in the States say that they can make more money for good harness horses in New York. Those who are attracted by glowing advertisements of horses for sale, of which the following, taken from a sporting paper, and which may be true in every particular, but which on the other hand may not, is a fair specimen : SPLENDID MATCH PAIR of BAY GELDINGS for SALE, 1 5. i high, ages 5 anc l 6 off, on short legs, and a perfect model of a cart-horse in growth, with much quality combined ; very fast, with good knee action, small head, good neck, and broad chest and thighs ; are pure Welsh breed, and worthy of the notice of gentlemen and others wanting horses for riding and driving ; both warranted good hunters, up to heavy weight, quiet in any kind of harness, valuable to a timid person, no vice or blemish, and of a kind, good temper ; suitable for brougham or victoria or a light landau ; no day too long, no distance too far. For trial. might do worse than study a humorous but instructive work, which, although published in 1841, is true of the present day, * The Adventures of a Gentleman in Search of a Horse,' by Sir George Stephen. In a series of assumed personal ex- periences, the author sets forth some of the most artful devices resorted to by horse ' copers ' to practise on the credulity of the unwary. He relates how he purchased a horse which was warranted sound, but could not be induced to feed ; the pur- chaser, of course, being unable to get any satisfaction out of the seller, who only warranted him sound, but not to eat. Upon another occasion, having bought his horse with a warranty and found out his deficiencies, he returned only to find the vendor flown, leaving no address, and numerous other tricks and rogueries are described. The moral which Sir George draws from all this is : Whenever you see a horse advertised for sale, avoid him as you would a pestilence. If he is ' a sweet goer,' depend upon it you will be gently dropped into the sweetest kennel in St. Giles's ; if he is * well suited for a charger,' he is sure to charge a haystack and a park of artillery with equal determination; if he 'never shies THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. 61 or stumbles,' the chances are three to one that he is stone-blind or cannot quit a walk ; ' the best horse in England' is to a certainty the worst in London; when 'parted with for no fault/ it means that he is sold for a hundred ; if ' the reason will be satisfactorily ex- plained,' it maybe taken for granted that the master has absconded either for stealing him or robbing his creditors ; when 'built like a castle/ he will move like a church steeple ; if ' equal to fifteen stone up to the fleetest hounds in England/ depend upon it he never saw the tail of a hound in his life ; if he is a ' beautiful stepper/ you will find that he has the action of a peacock ; if a liberal trial 'is allowed/ be most especially careful ; a deposit of half the price, but three times his value, will assuredly be required as security for your return ; and finally, whenever you see that he is the ' property of a trades- man who wants to exchange for a horse of less value for his business/ of a ' gentleman who has given up riding from ill-health/ or because ' he is going abroad/ of ' a professional man whose avocations call him from town/ of 'a person of respectability who can be referred to/ or of ' the executors of a gentleman lately deceased/ you may safely swear that he belongs to a systematic chaunter, who will swindle you both out of horse and money and involve you in all the trouble, cost, and vexation of an Old Bailey prosecution to boot. Apart from the purchase from a friend, which is at all times equally to be deprecated, inasmuch as it is a true saying that 'a man will swindle his brother in horseflesh,' and you are very likely to lose not only your money but your friend into the bargain ; there remains purchase at auction or of a dealer. If a man has some knowledge of horseflesh and can find out some- thing of the previous history of the animal offered for sale, he is very likely to pick up a bargain cheap at Tattersall's, Aldridge's, or elsewhere. But even under such circumstances a guinea is well expended in having the animal examined in the yard by a competent and trustworthy veterinary surgeon. The facilities there offered for a thorough investigation are, of course, limited, and it is possible that a veterinary surgeon may be unable to detect unsoundness, while under more favourable circumstances he would at once be able to pronounce a true opinion. I know of a horse which was sent to Tattersall's, described 62 DRIVING. as a good hunter, i.e. sound in wind and eyes. The horse had taken several hunters' prizes and had been frequently examined and passed sound, and to the best of the seller's belief was so. A friend of the seller wishing to purchase him, had him examined by a veterinary surgeon in Tattersall's yard, who declared that he was not sound in his eyes, and consequently declined to bid. The horse was subsequently bought by a dealer, and as he was never returned for a wrong description, it may be assumed that the examination to which he was subjected afterwards did not confirm the opinion of the examination con- ducted in the yard. On the other hand, a gentleman of my acquaintance, wishing to buy a pony and not satisfied with his own judgment, took the advice both of his London coachman and of the coachman he employed in the country, and to make quite certain submitted the animal to a veterinary surgeon, who passed him as sound. The pony was sent down to the country by rail, and on the return of the owner he was dis- gusted to hear from the stable boy that the pony was quite blind, which turned out to be the case. History does not say whether that veterinary surgeon's bill has ever been paid. Many purchasers are led away from the sum which they had determined to give by the excitement of competition at an auction, and think that, after all, for a horse that has taken their fancy, five, ten, and so on up to fifty guineas, more than they intended to give, will not hurt them. This is a most mistaken course to pursue, for the price which a purchaser ultimately gives he might probably have all the advantages of a trial and more complete veterinary examination of a dealer's horse, while his fancied competitor, whom he thinks must, from his evident determination to have the animal, know that he is going to get good value for his money, will probably turn out to be a friend of the owner, and is only bidding as a means of placing a high reserved price upon the animal. To buy at auc- tion requires time and patience ; and to buy cheap a man needs strength of mind when he sees horses he has taken a fancy to going for prices higher than he has previously decided to pay. THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. 63 Formerly it was the general practice for dealers and private persons to be asked to sell a horse with a warranty, a custom which led to innumerable disputes between the parties, much litigation, and yet left many loopholes by which a dishonest dealer could cheat the purchaser. It is usual now to sell a horse subject to examination by the buyer's veterinary surgeon. Perhaps one of the cheapest investments for an owner of horses who lives in London, or buys principally of London dealers, is to become a member of the Royal Veterinary College in Camden Town. For a life payment of twenty guineas, or an annual pay- ment of two guineas, subscribers to the College have the right to send their horses, when ill or whenever it is found necessary to perform any operation, to the institution, upon payment of the cost of medicine, and 35-. 6d. a day for the expense of keep, to have post-mortem examinations and analyses of food stuffs made for a small fee, and have the further privilege of sending any horses (not exceeding five in each year), which they may intend to purchase, to be examined as to soundness by the professors of the College. Such examinations have the addi- tional advantage over that by some veterinary surgeons of being perfectly free from the suspicion of any partiality in favour of the dealers. A purchaser should be on his guard the moment a dealer says to him, ' I never send my horses to the College, they knock them about so there.' It may be taken to mean that there is a screw loose somewhere. Some dealers, and most jobmasters, will allow a customer to hire the horse that he selects for a week or longer, with the option of purchasing at a stated price at the end of the time agreed upon. Here are the terms of one of the leading dealers for the purchase of a horse upon this principle : The price of a selected horse or horses shall be fixed previous to the beginning of the hire, but no horse can be let for a less period than three months, the hirer having the privilege of paying for it by instalments and having it examined should he see fit. Should the hirer desire a change, the purchase money to be altered either higher or lower according to the quality of the animal. The term 64 DRIVING. of three months is proposed because it would be impossible to let valuable horses for any less period. But the hirer may pur- chase after a week's trial if he so desires, when only one week's hire in addition to the agreed price will be charged. The hire of horses taken in this way is, for a pair of horses, April, May, June, and July, twenty-four guineas per lunar month, other months sixteen guineas. Single horses, half the above rates. The best dealers will have only, as - a rule, young, sound, unblemished horses ; but there are different dealers for different classes of horses ; and a gentleman, setting up a stable, must decide whether he intends to pay the highest price for the best stamp of horse of a fashionable West- End dealer, or whether, if he wants a serviceable slave, it will not suit alike his purse and his requirements to seek for him as far east even as Whitechapel. The words of the late Major Whyte- Melville are applicable to most of the well-known London dealers. He says, comparing the modern dealer with the old- fashioned coper, ' We have now to deal with a man who is a gentleman, if not by birth, at least in manners and action ; and notwithstanding the proverbially sharp practice of those con- nected with the sale of horses, I will venture to say that in no other trade will a customer meet with more fairness and liber- ality than will be shown him by the great dealers of London and the shires.' If, however, a buyer of horses were to decline any animal which a veterinary surgeon would not pass as * perfectly sound,' it is probable that he would be a long time in effecting his purchase, and might pass over many horses which would do the work he required of them thoroughly well, and that, too, for many years. It is necessary, therefore, to have some idea of what is and what is not material unsoundness and here the element of price is an important factor. There are some forms of unsoundness which would make a horse not worth his keep, and consequently dear at a gift. For instance, an animal that suffers from ossification of the joint above the hoof, or the cartilages on each side of the foot, that has defec- tive sight in one eye, or is badly affected in the wind, should THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. 65 be rejected without hesitation, nor is it safe to use a horse that has been unnerved, any more than you would a coach with an unsound axletree. Of course an absolutely broken-winded horse, with that peculiar action of the flanks incidental to this condition arid necessary to expel the compressed wind from his lungs, should never under any circumstances be admitted into the stable. His life must be one of constant suffering, and his only place is the knacker's yard. Horses for harness, touched in the wind, commonly called 'grunters,' 'roarers,' or 'whistlers,' are much less objectionable than as hunters. It is not likely that a horse unsound in wind can travel at any great pace without some discomfort and distress to himself, and yet such an one might answer all the purposes required of him in the streets of London, or for easy work in the country. There are horses which are known to have something against them, but still do not appear to be useless ; and if an animal of this sort can be hired from the dealer for a month, it is easy to try him for the work he may be required for, and if it is found that he is not distressed thereby, he may be worth purchasing at a price. A string-halt is an affection which, beyond its unsightliness, may be no great detriment, and indeed may not constitute un- soundness at all ladies have been known to declare that the most comfortable hack in the world is one which has a string- halt in both hind legs. Few horses who have done a certain amount of work will fail to show wind-galls, or enlarged bursce, but these are rarely a sign of anything further than work, unless they should become so distended by the fluid they contain as to set up inflammation and thence lameness. Splints are, next to wind-galls, the most common cause of unsoundness. Lameness arising from splints is caused by the pressure of a growing formation upon the covering of the shank bone, and can usually be reduced so as to cause little inconvenience, though if one should form between the large and two smaller bones of the leg, it may lead to permanent F 66 DRIVING. ossification between them, when it will be found difficult to apply a treatment which will be satisfactory. Bone-spavin, where the fluid which ought to lubricate the joints of the hock ceases to be generated, may produce an in- curable lameness ; but where it proceeds from a bony deposit, forming a junction of the small bones, blistering or firing before stiffness of the hock takes place may render the horse suffi- ciently sound for harness-work. Neither bload nor bog-spavin nor thorough-pin will necessarily cause lameness, but if it should do so, it is usually susceptible of cure. ' Big legs ' is the term usually used for the strain of any of the sinews or ligaments of the leg. Such injuries are of so varied a character that it is almost impossible to say whether a horse should be rejected on this account, but horses affected in the sinews can rarely be trusted to last long in work. ' Curbs,' if not of long standing, are usually curable, and are not of such importance in a harness horse as in a hunter, but the longer a curb has lasted the less probability is there of effecting its cure. Curbs in young horses can be easily and quite permanently cured. Foment till the heat is out, and then apply a strong blister to raise a scurf ; keep the animal on in work, and repeat the treatment. It may probably come home lame, but in two or three months the trouble will have been removed. 1 Corns ' and 'thrush' are diseases of the feet which, when pointed out to the farrier and groom respectively, should be cured by careful shoeing or attention to stable management. The vices of a horse cannot be discovered by a veterinary examination, but a horse that is affected in one of its eyes is pretty sure to see the objects which come in its path either distorted or with a suddenness which would not be the case had he his perfect sight, and such an affection almost invariably leads to a tendency on the part of the animal to shy. A totally blind horse is less likely to put the trap and its occupants into the ditch than one that is only partially so. But it is seldom that a horse's vices are not discoverable in the course of a THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. 67 month's trial, and a few words may here be said as to the best method of dealing with them. A determined kicker will be likely to do considerable damage to the vehicle behind him. If the horse sets to work with an evident intention of kicking, it will be well for the groom to jump down at once and lift up one of the fore-legs. This will render it out of the animal's power to continue kicking, and it" is better to tie it up with a handkerchief until he can be un- harnessed, rather than run the risk of having the trap kicked to pieces. If a horse bolts with you, recollect that, like the captain of the ship, the driver should be the last to leave. Far more accidents have happened to people from jumping out of a runaway carriage than to those who sat still on the box and endeavoured to obtain mastery over the animal. Keep his head as straight as you can, and if you can face him up a hill, your advantage is naturally all the greater. If a horse is an inveterate jibber, it will be found difficult to cure him of the propensity, though it may be done by putting him in double harness with a horse bigger and stronger than himself, who will fairly drag the refractory animal along. Cures are said to have been effected by tying a horse up at a spot where he began to jib, and depriving him of food until he will advance in the desired direction to obtain it ; but such a cure is by no means always practicable. If you are in a crowded thoroughfare when a horse jibs or backs, it is better at once to admit that he has got the best of you, and to turn his head in the direction that he wishes his tail to go. If a horse jibs in single harness in the country, back him in the direction you want to go, even for as far as a mile. He will get so disgusted with being backed, that when you turn him round he will be glad to go the way you wish to drive him. A not uncommon sight in the streets of London is the spectacle of an inhuman wretch kicking in the ribs an unfortu- nate horse which has fallen on the pavement, and urging it with every sort of violence to get on its legs again, though oppressed by a heavy weight on the shafts and with no better foothold F 2 68 DRIVING. than slippery asphalte or wood pavement. If a horse falls under such circumstances, the groom should at once be directed to run to his head, and, keeping his knee gently pressed against the neck so as to prevent his rising, undo the buckles of the harness, taking care when the weight of the shafts can be taken off him to throw a rug or coat on the place where his forefeet will be *put in the endeavour to rise, so that he may have something which will afford a more secure foothold than the ground which by its slipperiness has caused his fall Inasmuch as harness horses should last much longer than hunters, the purchase of a very young horse is never to be re- commended. You will get nearly as many years' work out of a sound seven-year-old as out of a four-year-old, with the advan- tage that the former has got over what may be termed his infantile complaints. Young horses are constantly throwing out splints, being laid up and causing anxiety to their owners, whereas a sound and seasoned six- or seven year-old horse should give his owner but little trouble. The age of a horse is principally determined by the teeth. The incisors are six in number when the mouth is complete, and in horses there is in addition a peculiar tooth on each side of the jaw called a ' tusk,' which does not appear till the animal is about four years old, and is not fully developed until the last permanent incisor is up. At the age of four the jaw contains four permanent teeth and one milk tooth on each side ; at five the six permanent incisors are present, though the inner wall of the corner teeth is absent. At six this inner wall has grown up to the level of the outer, and the mouth is complete. In addition to these changes, what is termed the * mark ' serves as a criterion of age. The ' mark ' is a hollow in the centre of the tooth, extending at first about half an inch into the incisor. The whole tooth is covered with a wall of pearly enamel, which penetrates into and lines the ' mark.' At four the mark is plain in all the permanent incisors. At six the mark is wearing out of the two centre teeth, but is plainly visible in the two next, and perfectly fresh in the two corner teeth. At seven the mark THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. 69 has disappeared from the centre teeth, is but faintly visible in the two next, and only distinct in the corner teeth, and at nine the marks are not to be depended upon at all. It should be borne in mind that crib-biters will wear their teeth down at an earlier age than others, while horses which feed on grass and soft food will often retain the marks twelve months longer than corn-fed horses. After the age of nine a purchaser must judge by the increasing length of the teeth and the increasing angle which they form with the jaw. Formerly, the practice of making artificial marks, or 'bishoping,' was not uncommon amongst dealers, but it is now becoming less prevalent. When such a one is brought into the yard of the Veterinary College, it is re- garded as quite an event by the students. The process is performed by filing the edges of the incisors to the required length, rasping the surface to whiten and cleanse them, and then rubbing them down with sandpaper to render them smooth ; after which the concave holes in the incisors are made with a sharp engraving tool, and carefully burnt with a hot iron so as to leave no stains round the edges. But no process has yet been discovered which can restore the lining of enamel with which the tooth in all its sinuosities ought to be, and is, covered by nature. Other tricks have been resorted to to disguise the age, such as puffing out with wind the deep holes that come over the eyes of old horses, thoroughly washing and neatly painting any grey hairs with indian ink in a dark-coloured horse. With these precautions, and by suddenly bringing a horse from a dark stall into a bright light, an appearance of youth, fire, and vigour may be given by which the unwary may be deceived. Horses for quiet harness -work will often last up to twenty- years of age, and even more ; but when they cease to be useful for the most moderate work, it is no true kindness to allow them to live on, with mouths unfit to perform the work of mastication, suffering perhaps from lameness or affection of the wind ; it is more merciful to put such an animal to a humane death. Horses are now seldom used for travelling, except in the 70 DRIVING. pleasure coaches which run between London and the suburbs, and in Scotland, Devonshire, and Wales, where in the tourist season a considerable amount of posting is still done in those mountainous districts inaccessible to the railway. In these districts a pair of posters will go thirty to forty miles a day, when the pressure of business requires. Before the advent of railways fifty miles in a day was not considered too much for a pair of horses to do, and that in a lumbering travelling carriage. The rules laid down for such a journey were to go ten miles and bait for fifteen minutes, giving each horse an opportunity to wash out his mouth and a wisp of hay. Then to travel another six miles and stop half an hour, taking off the harness, rubbing the horses well down, and giving to each half a peck of corn. After travelling a further ten miles, hay and water were given as at first, when another six miles might be traversed, and then a bait of at least two hours was considered necessary, and the horses were given hay and a feed of corn. After journeying another ten miles, hay and water as before was administered, and the rest of the journey might be accomplished without a further stop, when the horses were provided with a mash before their night meal, and if the weather were cold and wet, some beans thrown in. This calculates a pace averaging six or seven miles an hour. A very important question is, how much work can a horse or horses do ? Some people will say that horses can hardly be used too much, others that an hour or so a day is enough. A fair criterion may be obtained by taking the work which large jobmasters and contractors, who naturally get the most they can out of their horses, expect them to do. For slow work, such as that of a commercial traveller in London, when the distances are short, the pace slow, and stoppages long and many, a horse is expected to, and does, spend a day of eight hours in the shafts, and except Sunday does not often get a rest ; van-horses and others of that class also work, as a rule, all day ; but, although the hours are long, it will be found that no very great number THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. of miles has been travelled at the end of the week, and the pace is so slow that it will be no guide to the average horse-master. For quicker work the hardy cobs which are used in the newspaper or butchers' carts do good service; some of them ave- rage over twenty miles a day, quick work but with constant stoppages. It is the rule of well-conducted offices to keep spare horses, so that each of the animals gets two days' rest a week. 111 LIL - JL They only last, however, two to three years, one that has been working five years being 72 DRIVING. quite an exception. For quick harness-work it is the opinion of a large contractor and jobmaster, that it requires a very good horse to do regularly fourteen miles a day. Coach-horses, which at the present time are better looked after than in old days, and which generally command good prices at the end of a season which lasts for less than six months, travel on the average fourteen miles a day for five days a week, the work being done in two stages, and the pace about ten miles an hour. These horses are sometimes supplied by contractors, but more usually bought by gentlemen who manage the coach. I think, then, we may fairly say fourteen to fifteen miles a day for a single horse or pair of horses, if continued five days in the week, is very fair work, and only sound and good- constitutioned horses will go on doing it regularly that is, supposing the pace to be eight or nine miles an hour. Cobs will, as a rule, do more work than horses ; but even those I have mentioned in hard contract work do not do much more than one hundred miles a week. These job-horses, it may be mentioned, are entirely manger- fed, their hay being given in the form of chaff, and they have as much as they can eat. For long journeys, perfectly level roads are more tiring than those which are slightly undulating. It is always possible by accelerating the pace towards the end of a hill greatly to lighten the labour as well as to make a start in ascending the other side of the dip. In driving long distances a great speed should not be attempted, nor should horses be hurried at the start, until they are warmed to their work. Before the end of the journey it is desirable to slacken the pace in order that the horses may be brought in as cool as possible. The maxims given by old Markham in * The Way to Wealth,' published in 1731, are worth repeating. * When the days are extremely hot, labour you horses morning and evening, and forbear high noone. Take not a saddle off suddenly, but at leisure, and laying on the cloth set on the saddle again, till he be cold. THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. 73 Litter you horse deepe, and in the days of harvest let it also lye under him. Dress your horse twice a day.' Taylor, the Water-Poet, who was a contemporary and friend of Shakespeare, describes a journey which he made in 1647, in the following words : We took our coach, two coachmen, and four horses, And merrily from London made our courses. We wheel'd the top of the heavy hill call'd Holborn (Up which hath been full many a sinful soul borne), And so along we jolted past St. Giles's, Which place from Brentford six, or near seven miles is. To Staines that night at five o'clock we coasted, Where, at the Bush, we had bak'd, boil'd, and roasted. Bright Sol's illustrious rays the day adorning, We past Bagshot and Bawwaw Friday morning. That night we lodg'd at the White Hart at Alton, And had good meat a table with a salt on. Next morn we rose with blushing-cheek'd Aurora ; The ways were fair, but not so fair as Flora, For Flora was a goddess and a woman, And, like the highways, to all men was common. Our horses, with the coach which we went into, Did hurry us amain, through thick and thin too ; With fiery speed, the foaming bits they champ'd on And brought us to the Dolphin at Southampton. Horses that come fresh from a dealer's have usually been fed on soft food. When first brought into a stable they will require a dose of physic, gentle exercise, beginning with walking and gradually increasing in amount and pace, and a diet of hard corn for a week or a fortnight before they will be fit to do hard work. When a horse has once got into good condition he should have, as far as possible, regular work that is to say, he should have nearly as much exercise on idle days as he would be likely to have work when used by his master. For horses in ordinary condition and used for moderate driving, two hours a day should be ample, though, as a matter of fact, it is probable that few horses get more than one. Horses 74 DRIVING. are generally taken out to exercise as soon as they are fed, and the stalls cleaned out, and before the men's breakfast. The time available for the work, especially in winter, is therefore necessarily curtailed. 1 A harness horse in regular work ought to be fed four times a day, at six, eleven, four, and seven ; and should be given in that time 1 2 Ibs. of good old oats. The allowance for race- horses in training at Newmarket is from 14 Ibs. to 16 Ibs. per diem. Before being fed they should invariably be watered, unless the plan is adopted, which is at once more natural and attended with no evil effects, of allowing a horse always to have water in his trough, provided that at each feed the water in the trough is changed. Water should never be given to a horse just before undertaking hard work or immediately on coming in if very hot and tired. In the latter case a little warm gruel should take the place of it. See that your oats are of full weight, at least 40 Ibs. to the bushel; that they are quite without smell, dry, neither too fresh nor musty, and that they are of about the same size. Hay should be old and good, sweet-smelling upland hay. It should be clean, firm, and bright, and, if possible, from one to two years old. New hay should never be given until after the November of the year in which it was made. The bedding, which should not be stinted, ought to consist of the best wheat straw; it should always be kept thoroughly clean, and no dung be allowed to remain amongst it. It should be turned over and thoroughly exposed to dry every day. Barley straw is prickly, irritating to the skin, and should never be used. Oat straw, being much shorter than wheat, requires to be used in larger quantities, and has the objection that horses are tempted to eat it. The use of peat-moss involves much extra trouble in grooming, but is very useful for sick horses or others not in 1 The horses in the hack cars in the streets of Dublin are usually 18 hours 5 or 6 days running in the shafts. They get 28 Ibs. of oats a day, and think nothing of running you down to Newbridge, over 20 Irish miles (about twenty- five miles English measure). ED. THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. 75 regular work; care should be taken to lay down a fresh covering to the bed frequently, or the horse's feet will suffer. Green forage is very cooling in hot weather, but should always be given quite fresh. Beans and peas may be mixed with the corn where horses are doing hard work, especially after they come in from a long day. A pair of horses will not only draw a heavier carriage, but will also, by mutual assistance, do a longer day's work, than a single horse. In fact, two horses are always better than one for anything like real work, though here of course a man's means have to be considered. If a master wishes to use his horses both for riding and driving, there is no reason why he should not do so, especially if he has light hands and can persuade his groom, when driving them, not to ' hang on to their heads.' The question may perhaps be asked, what sort of establish- ment of horses is to be recommended for a married man of ample means, who does not care to have in his stables animals which he would only take out a few times a year ? Such a man might be advised to provide himself with six teamers namely, three wheelers and three leaders. Of these the leaders should always be animals that can be driven in a phaeton or victoria, and the wheelers suitable to go in a brougham or landau when required. In addition, a pair of carriage horses for a lady's regular use might be kept. Two hacks, of which one can be ridden by the groom, should be enough, especially if there is a hunting stable in addition to draw upon. One, or at most two, ' slaves ' for night work in London and station work in the country will complete a stable which most people will find take up all their time to keep in sufficient work. Ponies, which are of use for little else than the pony carriage, will be required only by those who have a special fancy for such. The carriages for them to horse might consist of an omnibus a most useful carriage for station work, especially with a large family, and also for taking a shooting party and their loaders to the coverts ; it should be provided with bars so that a team can be driven in it if necessary a coach, an exercising break, a 76 DRIVING. phaeton or stanhope, a coupe brougham (or if there are young ladies, a double brougham), and either a victoria or a landau. This will be as much as a London stable is likely to hold, though a hansom cab with india-rubber tires is a serviceable vehicle ; it is not conspicuous, travels fast, and is very useful both for messages and light station work. Such other carriages as a Perth dog-cart or an Irish car might be kept in the country. ' The young idea.' Tattersall's. CHAPTER IV. THE COACH-HORSE. BY THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, K.G. So much difference of opinion is there as to what is the best and pleasantest style of coach-horse to drive, that we are not likely to find ourselves in agreement with all our readers upon this subject. The old stage-coachmen used to say that they liked the big heavy horse for a hilly team, and the small, com- pact, quick-stepping, fast-galloping little horse for a flat stage. We must remember that in those days, when the coach was the only conveyance of the country, the loads were very heavy, and no doubt the big, heavy plodding horse put his shoulder well to it, and got the coach up the hill with less trouble to him- self and his coachman, than the smaller and lighter team of horses would have done. In these days, when the road coaches 7 8 DRIVING. only carry passengers and no luggage to speak of, even if there is any at all, we should prefer for all sorts of roads short- stepping and small, though thick, horses. They are infinitely pleasanter to drive. Anybody who has had the experience of taking off a big, lolloping team of rather under-bred horses who are very tired, and have been hanging on the coachman's hands for the last two or three miles of the stage, will under- stand what a pleasure and a relief it is to feel the quick, sharp trot of a little team of fresh horses. We think, from our experience of the modern road coaches, and from what we see of the gentlemen's teams driving about London and the country, that so far we shall be in agreement with most of our readers. Difference of opinion exists as to the respective heights of wheelers and leading horses. Some like them exactly the same size, others prefer a big wheel-horse and a little leader ; others again like a thick, low wheel-horse, and rather a taller and slighter leader. In our opinion, this latter is the perfection of a team. It looks better when they are coming to you, as well as when you are sitting on the coach. We do not think, however, it really signifies either one way or the other. We have driven teams of horses of all sorts, and shapes, and sizes, and we have found them to go equally well, whether the leaders were the same size, or larger, or smaller than the other horses. It is a matter of 'taking the eye,' and for appearance we prefer the small, thick wheeler, and the tall, light leader. The gentleman who wants to set up a team, having got his coach, and his harness, his coach-house, his harness-room, and his stable beautifully done up, looking as smart as French polish and bright brass can make it look, has now to proceed to buy himself a team of horses. We must take for granted that gentlemen who want to set up a coach and horses, even if they are beginners, will have some knowledge of the animal horse, and therefore will not find it necessary to wade through these pages to learn where to find one. But there are gentle- men who, having had too much to occupy them in their youth, THE COACH-HORSE. 79 and having more leisure as they get further on in life, might wish to start a team, and might refer to these volumes for advice how to do so. To them we would say, get your wheel- horses as strong as is consistent with activity. If you have the choice between the good-actioned horse that is not quite so strong and a stronger horse that is not quite of such good action, the judicious course will be to buy the good-actioned horse. Also we should recommend a coachman to teach his horses to go both at wheel and before the bars, as he will find their readiness to work in either place a great convenience. Of course the least troublesome, though it may prove to be the most expensive, way of finding a team will be to go to a well- known dealer. But the lover of coaching will find more amusement, and interest, and fun, in picking up horses for himself, and for this purpose visits to TattersalFs, Aldridge's, or Mr. Rymill's at the Barbican, &c., afford a very large choice of animals, of all sizes, and shapes and colours. Then, again, if a gentleman has leisure and time to devote to it, he can look round some of the great country emporiums, such as Reading, Rugby, Leicester, Swindon, and other country towns, which should provide him with something that suits his fancy. If the beginner is content to get nice fresh but raw horses, not at all a bad plan is to buy from the farmers. This entails a little horse-breaking, which is not bad practice for a beginner. It may cost a little in paint from the vagaries which young horses indulge in, but it is perhaps more pleasant and more satisfactory to sit behind and drive a team of your own breaking, than it is to be furnished with everything to your hand by the dealers. As regards the stamp of horses for a long and hard day's work, there is nothing can beat a thoroughbred one. The more blood you have in horses you drive, the better you will be able to do long and trying journeys. Still such animals are scarcely what we should designate by the word coach-horses. If you have not very long stages to go, you can indulge your 8o DRIVING. fancy by studying from the old pictures the stamp of horse that was used formerly, before the railways ran the coaches clean off the roads. It is not at all disagreeable amusement going about and trying to find horses of the same stamp that were used in those days. Of course, the very short tails which the coach-horses and posters had in those days very much alter the appearance of the stamp of horse, and render it more difficult to procure the exact variety that was formerly used, because if they exist they are so changed. An inex- perienced man cannot realise the extent to which a horse's appearance can be altered by putting him on a long or a short tail. It is only to the well-practised eye of a man very conver- sant with horses that the exact shape and make can be detected under the altered circumstances of a long or a short tail. The gentleman, having provided himself with the horses that please him, has now got to put them into his stable. And here we would impress upon him that hot stables are to be avoided ; the cooler and better ventilated they are, and the more the windows are kept open either by day or by night, the healthier he will find his horses to be. We have, however, already gone so thoroughly into the question of stables, 1 that we need not enter into detail here. A great difficulty with regard to horses in a gentleman's establishment, so different from public coach-horses who run their ten or twelve miles every day, is the want of uniformity in the amount of work that the horse gets. From some cause or other he may not . go out for three or four days, the next three or four days he may be out every day upon journeys of varying length. Therefore either the master himself or his groom must try and exercise what sense has been given each, in apportioning the amount of exercise that the horse should take ; in one case it may be necessary for the animal to make up for the want of work, in the other he will require merely sufficient to stretch his legs for healthy purposes after he has been on a long journey. One great difficulty the groom has 1 Hunting, p. 89. THE COACH-HORSE. Si to contend with is, that if his master is at home he dare not give the horses too many hours' exercise in the morning for fear he should be ordered out in the afternoon and have a long journey before him. Very often the master may say that he does not think he will want the horses to-morrow, and the groom accordingly gives them their exercise ; but at the last moment there comes some invitation, some necessity to go to a distant railway station, or some cause which brings the horses out when it has been understood that they will not be needed It is a remarkable fact how wonderfully regular exer- cise agrees with a horse. We have seen horses low in condi- tion, others too fat, some as lean as herrings, put on to a stage coach, and you may al- most say be- fore a month, certainly before two months, after they have been doing their allotted work every day, barring perhaps one day in four as rest, they will look as round as dray-horses, and yet be in the hardest possible condition. This is why those horses generally look better than the gentlemen's horses whose work is so irregular. For gentlemen who have first-class coachmen living with them, or whose coach-horses are under a good hunting groom, it is unnecessary to dilate upon the question of grooming. But there G Well strapped every day. 82 DRIVING. are not a few owners who like to be their own stud grooms, and to these we should say elbow grease is the best receipt we can give for having horses in good condition. Nothing is so healthy for a horse, nothing makes him look so well and feel so well, as being thoroughly well strapped every day ; and if a gentleman can get men to do that conscientiously and take pride in it, he will seldom find it necessary to send for a veterinary surgeon. We are very great advocates for allowing all horses, of every sort and description, to have water standing in their stable or box. After over forty years' experience, we can say that we have found the benefit to the horse's health and to his wind to be some- thing extraordinary. Horses very seldom go roarers when they can put their noses into their trough and take a couple of mouth- fuls when they like, and thus they often moisten their corn in the manger. It stands to reason, and as a matter of fact we have absolutely proved, that a horse when left to his own instinct drinks about five gallons of water a day ; and if he takes it in very small sips, rarely or never drinking more than a small tea- cupful at a time, it is much less likely to make him a bad roarer than if he fills his stomach twice a day, drinking off, as may be said at one swig, four gallons each time. We have practically proved the difference between the quantity of liquid consumed by a horse which is watered twice a day and one which has water constantly with him ; the former drinks eight gallons and the latter only five. We consider the continuous supply quite as im- portant for coach-horses as it is for hunters and hacks. In our own experience of a large establishment, the increase in venti- lation and decrease in the amount of water consumed by the horses have vastly reduced the number of roarers. Forty years ago, in a stable where there were always eighty to one hundred horses in hard work, half of them, and sometimes more, were roarers ; in the same establishment now, with about the same number of horses, there have not been for many years more than two or three roarers at a time, and we attribute the change entirely to the method of watering, and the greater amount of fresh air in the stables. ' Doors opened every day.' CHAPTER V. THE COACH-HOUSE, HARNESS-ROOM, AND DRIVING APPLIANCES. BY MAJOR DIXON AND OTHERS. WHETHER the coach-house be a tiny apartment affording shelter to a modest pony-cart only, or whether it be a lofty many- doored building accommodating a dozen valuable carriages, it should be a subject of considerable care. In order that com- plete justice be done, one cart or carriage requires just as much care as if it were but one-tenth of the owner's vehicles ; and the same remark holds good in the case of harness. When properly looked after carriages and harness last a long time, and preserve their good appearance to the end ; but if neglected, then, like clothes, they become prematurely shabby. It is easy to lay down rules for the building of coach-houses and harness-rooms, but the ideal can exist only where the owner has plenty of space, and the means to indulge his G 2 84 DRIVING. fancy ; less favoured individuals must take things as they find them, and make the best of the means at their disposal ; but even then there is no excuse for disregarding certain well- defined rules and commonly accepted precautions. THE COACH-HOUSE. Beginning with the coach-house, it is of supreme impor- tance that it be dry. If damp, woodwork, ironwork, linings, and cushions (though on the slightest suspicion of moisture the latter should be removed within range of a stove) will all surfer. It is preferable that the coach-house should be moderately warm ; but dryness is the first consideration ; and plenty of fresh air, and a few gallons of white water oil for use in o'ne or other of the mineral-oil stoves, procurable everywhere, will work wonders. Gas,, when laid on, may be used as a substi- tute, but it has a tendency to tarnish metalwork, and, therefore to increase labour. Air is of as much importance as warmth, so the doors of the coach-house should be flung open every day ; while linings and cushions should be carefully brushed ; but the brush should not be too hard, lest it injure the fabric. A small painter's brush should always be kept to get dust out of corners and interstices into which the ordinary pattern can- not penetrate. Of late years the seats of both open and closed carriages have been made without the quilting and button pro- cess, and the new departure is an improvement, as the inden- tations where the buttons are sewn on harbour a great deal of dust, whether the material be leather or cloth. The doors and windows of closed carriages should be opened daily ; and in the event of a vehicle not being required for use for some time the cushions should be taken away, placed in holland wrap- pings together with a handful of Russian leather shavings ; while a few more should be placed on the carriage itself to preserve the lining from the ravages of moth. A single-horse vehicle will not have the shafts removed ; but THE COACH-HOUSE, HARNESS-ROOM, ETC. 85 in every coach-house due provision should be made for the recep- tion of the poles of two-horse carriages. The common practice of propping them against the wall is not to be commended, unless there be on the wall some contrivance for holding the heads, and a stop on the floor to prevent the downward ends from slipping ; but a projection on the ground often interferes, in limited establishments, with the utilisation of all the room for standing purposes. Unless some means are taken to keep a pole secure it may crack after being thrown down, and break when in use moreover, in damp weather a pole may warp through being stood against a wall. A better plan is to have- wooden supports fitted to the wall of the coach-house, on which the pole may rest. The wood should be covered with some soft substance to prevent scratching, and the supports should be about five feet apart, an arrangement which will nofe throw undue strain upon any part of the pole. Those who believe in the importance of small things will see the advisa- bility of having the pole supports about three feet^six inches from the ground, so as to prevent unthinking people from seating themselves on the pole. A carriage fresh from the coach-builders, either as a new one or after the ' doing up ' process, has had such pains expen- ded upon the painting and varnishing of its panels and wheels i that it is clearly the duty of the owner to insist upon the clean- ing being properly and carefully performed. The apparently simple feat of washing a carriage is, nevertheless, not so easy as it looks, and takes some time to learn. A well-meaning but inexperienced lad may not begin to clean a vehicle until the mud has been dry on it for some hours ; then he sets to work with a stiff brush, scratching the varnish all over ; turns on a deluge of water ; remembers that his dinner or tea time has arrived ; gives the carriage a hasty wipe over, and rolls it back into the coach-house with many beads of water still cling- ing to it. People, therefore, who have good carriages will find it the best economy to engage a competent servant, even though he may require a higher wage. But as the services of a 86 . DRIVING. second-rate man may have to suffice in some establishments, the owner must remember that the mud should be removed before it dries on the carriage. While it is soft it comes off without difficulty ; does not need scrubbing, or picking off with the finger-nails (an operation which is sure to scratch the panel) ; and does not leave a stain behind it. Then, when the mud has "been removed, and water has been thrown over the carriage, the latter should be carefully dried, as the drops of water, if allowed to dry on, spoil the panels. The writer w r ould here suggest that the inexperienced horse- owner would do well, at the outset of his career, to look on while his carriage, horses, and harness are being cleaned after use on a muddy day. His presence may, in the first place, lead to the work being done thoroughly, and as it should be done ; while, secondly, and more important still, the owner will discover, if he did not know it before, that the cleaning of an equipage is a lengthy process. As neither horses, car- riage, nor harness should ever be sent out dirty, the master will realise the fact that to constantly have his carriage in and out for short journeys is unfair both to his servants and his property. If, however, he insists upon being driven to the station in the morning, hands over the carriage to his wife for afternoon purposes, and requires to be taken to theatre or dinner in the evening, he must man his establishment accord- ingly, if he would have justice done to himself and his chattels. We would protest in the strongest manner against things being half done. A carriage which is merely rubbed over on half a dozen occasions for every one that it is thoroughly washed ; bits that are burnished one day and just wiped the next, will never look well, and never do credit to the stable servants. If you are so situated or inclined as to need a conveyance at short intervals throughout the day, for what may approximate to business purposes, get a cheap cart, a rough pony, and inexpen- sive harness, and do not pretend to keep any of them up to the mark. The turn-out will then look what it is, merely a conveni- ence ; but do not get good horses, carriages, and let us hope THE COACH-HOUSE, HARNESS-ROOM, ETC. 87 good servants, and then spoil the one and demoralise the other by unfair usage. As regards two-wheeled carts, a varnished one that is to say, one varnished but not painted is rather less trouble to clean than one which is both painted and varnished. It is scarcely necessary to remark that the coachman should make frequent examination of the carriages committed to his care. A sudden jolt may have caused something to go amiss with a spring ; a nut or a bolt on the under-carriage may have worked loose ; the pole or splinter-bar may have become sprung ; the wheels may need oiling, or the washers may require to be renewed. In all these little matters the stitch in time may save not only nine, but the life of some 'one as well. The axles in particular should be carefully examined, as they are probably the most important of all the com- ponent parts of a coach or any other carriage ; and since the ill-fated accident that befell the ' Box Hill ' when Captain Cooper was driving it and the pole broke, we do not re- collect a single mishap to any of the road-coaches which was not caused by a defective axle. In 1882, the axle of Major Lawes's drag broke while he was driving along Queen's Gate, the passengers were thrown off, and Mrs. Willis had the mis- fortune to severely injure her leg. Collinge's boxes are mostly in use for private carriages, and the old mail box for both public and private coaches ; they are both good in their way, but when once a flaw appears in the steel, all the screws and bolts in the world cannot prevent the wheel coming off. Accidents must happen sometimes to the best built, most perfectly appointed and carefully driven, coaches and carriages of every description. Horses may take fright at any unusual noise or object, and run away ; they may kick, shy, or be up to many and various sorts of tricks ; a pole or a spring may break, a wheel may come off, or a thousand and one other things may happen. In each and every one of such cases, there is only one rule, a golden one : Stick to the ship as long as you can ; there is always some chince of assistance being at hand. There is none if you throw yourself, or jump, off. 83 DRIVING. THE HARNESS-ROOM. As with the coach-house so with the harness-room its situation, size, and internal arrangements cannot always be selected by the individual who happens to be its temporary owner. In large country establishments, where there is plenty of space, the stable offices are often satisfactory enough ; but in a London mews, or in ' cribbed, cabined, and confined ' places, arrangements of obvious advantage, not to say importance, must frequently be sacrificed to the exigencies of space. If, how- ever, it can by any possibility be avoided, the harness-room should never communicate with the stable, as the ammonia from the latter dulls and tarnishes all metal- work which may come under influence of its fumes. Where the two are found opening one into the other, it is worth while? if the stable have a second entrance, to stop up the door between the two ; plug up all the holes and crevices, and put the coachman to the additional trouble of carrying the ' tack ' round ; even if it be exposed to the rain on the way, it is the lesser of two evils. Internally the fittings should be complete, though not THE COACH-HOUSE, HARNESS-ROOM, ETC. 89 necessarily expensive. To hang a saddle upon a tenpenny nail to force a crupper over a great wooden arm, merely because it happens to be there ; or to hang bits and stirrup- irons over a gas bracket, because no proper convenience is at hand, is false economy. Such makeshifts are never seen in well-regulated establishments. The harness-room should be provided with a fireplace or stove of some kind, and bits, stirrup-irons, &c., should be kept in a wooden case, lined with green baize, and placed in a dry part of the room over the mantelshelf is as good as anywhere. Several firms now make the fitting up of harness-rooms a speciality, and no difficulty need be experienced in procuring suitable brackets, pegs, &c., at a moderate cost, if economy be an object. The manner in which bits are turned out is, to a great extent, an index of the pains bestowed upon the equipage at large ; they should be kept scrupulously clean, free from the slightest speck of rust, and should be carefully burnished, for which a burnisher is required. Bits are, to a great extent, matters of fancy, and are also very often the most difficult things to get suited with, as it is not only the horse's mouth, but the coachman's hands, which have to be considered. There are one or two persons well known in the Park who, on the strength of possessing fairly good hands, drive with bits of the greatest severity. A bit that exactly does for one horse may drive another mad, which sometimes makes it awkward when you have to drive a pair, and all the more so when you have to put a team together. The Liverpool bits are very fashionable ; neat and useful for single harness, or tandem-driving, but in double harness, or with a team, they are apt to hurt the sides of the horses' mouths, for which there is no prevention except to use a circular cheek-leather, which fits on either or both sides of the bit, but which is far from being ornamental. The old-fashioned elbow-bits are probably the best for heavy coach-work ; though some men prefer the ' Buxton ' pattern, with a bar at the bottom, to prevent the bit from becoming entangled in the pole-chain's, or coupling-rein 90 DRIVING. when no bearing-reins are used ; but there are now so many different sorts, sizes, and patterns made, that with a little trouble all can be accommodated. l Bearing-reins have been, and will always continue to be, a bone of contention between coachmen of different classes, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and others who periodically write a considerable amount of rubbish on the subject when the newspapers are not filling well, and the gigantic gooseberry season comes in. It may safely be said that were not bearing reins still in use among the ordinary traffic of Piccadilly, Bond Street, Regent Street, &c., the number of accidents, as well as the amounts of the coach- builder's bills, would be largely increased. There is no reason in the world why they cannot be put on to be of use when required, without causing torture, though no doubt in many cases they are improperly employed. As, however, there are some people it is doubtful whether they are practical coach- men who decline to see in bearing-reins anything but horrible barbarity, it may not be out of place to state briefly in what cases they may be of some use. Except for the purpose of show, they might be dispensed with for horses in single harness in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred. The hundredth' horse might be some heavy-headed boring brute requiring more room in which to be pulled up than is always available in the streets of London. With such a horse a bearing-rein, not tighter than is absolutely necessary, is surely permissible, if only to save the coachman's arms. It may be granted that bad bitting and worse driving may have originally conduced to the horse's mouthless state ; it may also be true that the man called upon to drive him may not possess the skill of a Sir 1 The bit must be suited to the horse, and the possessor and driver of many horses must, if he wishes to enjoy life, have many bits, some with ports, some without. Nine horses out of ten will go pleasantly in a shifting bit, which has a smooth side and a rough side to the bar, which also shifts up and down for about an inch, and the cheek of which turns so that the smooth or rough side can be used. B. THE COACH-HOUSE, HARNESS-ROOM, ETC. 91 St. Vincent Cotton ; but we hold that a proper use of any mechani- cal appliance is allowable when other means fail. The well-mean- ing faddists who inveigh so bitterly against bearing-reins are not above using curb- 92 DRIVING. bits ; and on the whole, horses perhaps suffer much less from bearing-reins than from heavy hands and curb-bits. In double harness, however, the employment of loose bearing-reins has saved many an accident. If a pair of horses, or four, are driven straight away for, say, ten miles, baited, and driven home again, bearing-reins are often, it may be admitted, not wanted ; but it is different with horses driven in the Park, and those which have to stand outside shops or private houses, while the occupants of the carriage are shopping or visiting. Horses soon get warm under the bridle, and when they are pulled up it is to the moist spot that the flies are attracted. They cause a certain amount of irritation, and the horse natu- rally enough scratches himself, or at least he would do had he a hand for the purpose. He drops his head to the pole ; and possibly gets the bit fast. Out comes the proprietor of the carriage, or perhaps the policeman on duty appears with a moving-on mission. The entanglement is not perceived till too late ; the horse does not answer to the reins ; a collision occurs, or perhaps the horse starts kicking and then falls down. When the evening papers appear, the ubiquitous reporter will be found to have sent in a paragraph detailing ' A singular carriage accident at the West End.' This is no fancy sketch ; and a bearing-rein which is short enough to prevent such a catas- trophe is, at the same time, long enough to allow the horse un- restrained freedom of the head. It is the abuse of bearing-reins (which takes the form of the gag shortened to a cruel extent), and not the use of them, which merits universal condemnation. Breech-bands, or breechings as they are more commonly called, are very useful in broughams, T-carts, and other vehicles when a single horse has to stop a load, but they are very little wanted in buggies, gigs, or dogcarts, except in very hilly countries, where they are also still sometimes considered an essential part of four-horse and pair-horse harness ; but with the present improvements in breaks, they are seldom required, are very unsightly, make more weight for the horses to carry, and add to the cost of the harness. THE COACH-HOUSE, HARNESS-ROOM, ETC. 93 Collars require the greatest attention and nicety in fitting, for they must not only fit well, but exactly if too long, they are as bad as if they were too short, too wide, or too narrow ; in each case sore shoulders are certainties. It follows, there- fore, that, where more horses than one are kept, each should have its own collar, which should be plainly marked inside, so as to preclude the possibility of mistake. For private car- riages they can be made as light and elegant as is compatible with strength and safety ; but for long journeys or coach-work they can scarcely have what the collar-makers call too much stuff in them. Before putting the collar on, the man who is about to do so should put his knee into it and widen it a little ; few people know what agony some horses suffer from having a narrow collar brutally shoved over their eyes and ears, and the man who invents a collar which could be opened at the 'top, and closed again neatly when under the names strap, would be the greatest benefactor to horses whose mission is harness. The great difficulty about such a collar, and one which has never been surmounted yet, is that it is impossible to make it keep its shape, and it is more liable than all others to give sore shoulders. A collar when on should lie flat on each side of the horse's neck, with just room enough at the bottom for a man's moderate-sized hand to go through. When taken off, the collar should be well washed with soap and warm water and thoroughly dried, ^ near a hot fire, before being again used. > False collars, a flat piece of leather made to fit under the actual collar, may be useful to protect a horse's shoulders for the first time or two he is put into harness, and some horses always require to wear one. Harness-makers have a formula they sometimes make use of when measuring a horse for a collar, and Messrs. Spence & Storrars, of Letham, Ladybank, Fife, invented, about the year 1885, a horse-collar measurer, which, in its arrangement of framework and movable pegs, bears some resemblance to the configurator used by some hatters to measure their customers for a hat. We know 94 DRIVING. nothing of the merits of this contrivance, but it is a self- obvious fact that it is advisable, whenever practicable, for the harness-maker to see the horse he is required to fit with a collar. The straightness or obliquity of the animal's shoulders, the width of chest, leanness or fleshiness of neck, and the con- dition he is in at the time of measurement, are one and all matters which to a greater or lesser degree demand particular attention. The foregoing remarks apply almost exclusively to the ordinary horse-collar, i.e. the stuffed one which is put on over the horse's head ; but as we desire to impart as much informa- tion as possible upon the subject of harness, we here make mention of several inventions which have from time to time been submitted to the horse-owning public. First of all comes the zinc collar-pad of Mr. Dexter Curtis, 59 Tenby Street North, Birmingham. 1 This contrivance 'for the prevention and cure of horses' sore necks ' we quote the inventor's description may be described as a sort of false collar of zinc. Mr. Curtis's theory is, we believe, that when the horse gets warm, the moisture acting upon the metal creates a sort of extempore zinc ointment, the cooling and healing properties of which are well known. The article manufactured by the Alpha Air Horse-Collar Company, 9 Eagle Place, Piccadilly Circus, London, differs from the collar in ordinary use in being filled with air instead of stuffing. The prospectus claims for this invention the following advantages among others : ' The pad being pliable enables the horse to fit himself immediately to his collar in draught ; it resists perspiration and is cool to the shoulders ; it is lighter, and more durable than the ordinary collar ; it is not more costly than the ordinary kind ; and it prevents sore shoulders.' It is inflated through a small screw opening, some- thing like that attached to a common air seat ; but there is this peculiarity about it viz. : that when the screw is turned so as to allow the air to escape, the collar partly refills itself again. Several testimonials in favour of this collar are printed on the prospectus, two of them being from Mr. Sangster, the 1 I strongly recommend these zinc collar-pads. ED. THE COACH-HOUSE, HARNESS-ROOM, ETC. 95 veterinary surgeon, and Messrs. Pickford, the well-known carriers respectively. Lastly, we come to the patent of the Elastic Horse- Collar Company, 72 Summer Row, Birmingham. The prospectus gives the following description of the new collar, which, we may mention, is made of thin steel : The collar may be described as a hollow pair of hames enlarged to the size of an ordinary collar, and fitting the horse's shoulder like an ordinary collar, but in an improved manner. It is composed of two similar halves, with their necessary- connections, formed of thin steel plates forged into U shape, and is provided with rigid fastenings at top and bottom, thus enabling the collar to be opened on pressing a spring catch at the throat, and then easily put on or taken off a horse's neck, avoiding the necessity of forcing the collar over the horse's head, and greatly facilitating the disengagement of the collar when a horse falls. The draught-hooks (which may be replaced by rings or any other appliance to suit existing harness) are attached to the outer and front flanges of the sides of the collar, which are strengthened with internal springs of U shape, and have a considerable degree of elasticity, rendering the collar remarkably easy to the animal's shoulders, and greatly relieving the shock incident to sudden and heavy draught. The elastic steel collars may be readily adjusted to the horse's shoulders, and once fitted never alter their shape ; and presenting a smooth surface galvanised with zinc, they prac- tically extend the advantages of the zinc pad, which has been in use for some years with such good results, all over the collar. The pull is distributed over a large surface of the shoulders, and does not come wholly on the outer edge, as is often the case with the ordinary leather collar. They are always dry, and comfortable, and fit for immediate use. They are invaluable for horses with tender skin, enabling them to work with comfort where, with ordi- nary collars, they would be continually under treatment for galls. The collars are lighter, stronger, cheaper, cleaner, and more com ; - fortable than leather collars. All parts are interchangeable, and, in the event of any part being damaged or worn out, it can be at once replaced at a nominal cost. The hames of ordinary collars are occasionally pulled out of their places, but as hames are not used with the elastic steel collars, that dangerous occurrence cannot happen. The collars are in use by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, 96 DRIVING. Tramway, Omnibus and Railway Companies, brewers, maltsters, S:c. They are approved by the Society for the Prevention of .Cruelty to Animals and by eminent veterinary surgeons, and in no single instance where the collars have been used have they failed to gain approval, and to establish their superiority over those hitherto in use. In connection with the above, and a few other new inven- tions which will be noticed in the course of this chapter, it must be understood that we do not claim to have tried them (unless otherwise specified), or to have formed any opinion concerning their merits or demerits. We have let the inventors tell their own story for the benefit of those who may see fit to try them ; and notice of the various patents has been made simply and solely with the view of making this portion of the book as complete as possible, and of bringing it down to date ; though at the same time we do not pretend to include every- thing which ingenious and sometimes unpractical man has invented. Kicking-straps are most useful in all kinds of single-harness work ; but the attempts which have from time to time been made to apply them to double harness have generally resulted in failure. A horse that requires a cradle or kicking- strap in double harness is not fit to be put to a gentleman's carriage, but should be relegated to omnibus, van, or coach work, where, with a good thick elm-board behind him, he may let fly to his heart's content without doing much damage except to his own hocks. In single harness a kicking-strap is useful in more ways than one : it need not be heavy-looking, and must not be put on tight ; if so it is worse than useless, and will make a horse kick, instead of preventing him from doing so. If properly fixed it will at once stop almost any horse who jumps up from play or from vice, when the sharp application of the whip over his ears a few times will quickly bring him to his senses again. Should a horse slip up, either in a two- or four-wheeled vehicle, the strap will help to keep him from getting his hind legs over the shaft. They are also ornamental as well as useful, for they im- THE COACH-HOUSE, HARNESS-ROOM, ETC. 97 prove the appearance of the horse by removing the unfurnished look about his quarters ; and, as they can be made at the same time very light and very strong, it is always the safest plan to use them ; for, as the phrase goes, ' It is better to be sure than sorry.' Some gentlemen boast that they carry the kicking-strap in the horse's mouth. This may be the profi- ciency of a few, but such exquisite hands are not vouchsafed to all men. Good hands are no doubt a great prevention against kicking, as may be often seen ; horses that invariably kick both in saddle and harness with men very seldom misbehave them- selves when ridden or driven by women. Kicking-straps, then, especially in London, should be looked upon as articles of necessity. Some breechings are made to fit so well that they act almost as efficiently, and with the addition of a short strap do so perfectly, and have the additional advantage in a four- wheel carriage that they help the horse considerably when going downhill, or pulling up sharply. Blinkers are objected to by some people on various grounds, but in London and all large towns, like bearing-reins and kick- ing-straps, the advantages they present are considerable and numerous ; if properly fitted, they do not prevent a horse from seeing what is meeting him, which is really all he requires to see, but they do obstruct from his view many things that might alarm him that are going on behind, such as whips, sticks, umbrellas being flourished about, another horse being hit, &c. Harness adapted to all tastes and purposes, and to all pockets, can be obtained almost anywhere now in London or the provinces ; and a good harness-maker will, as a rule, supply what he thinks best suited to his customers, their carriages, and horses. The multiplicity of crests, badges, bosses, &c., which well-nigh hide all the leather used to make State harness, can only be known to those who belong to the trade; if plenty of show be required, the matter had best be left in professional hands. It is in connection with pair-horse harness for a T-cart, a victoria, or other light carriage, especially if for a lady to drive, that the mistakes often begin. In harness of this description all that 98 DRIVING. is required is sufficient strength, combined with perfect plain- ness, simplicity, and neatness ; there should, therefore, be no trace-bearers or ' lion-straps,' as they are sometimes called ; no drops with crests on the forehead, no cloths under the pads ; while caps with crests on the top of the collars look clumsy on light harness. The reins should be of good tan colour, no black coupling ends or white hand-pieces, but the ordinary tan rein from end to end ; the coupling reins should be long, the buckles coming to within eighteen inches of the hands when the horses are going. They should be flat round reins are not safe and all buckles should be oblong, not rounded off at the end which the tongue lies on ; for if they are they will soon wear out the traces, reins, or whatever else they are used with. The blinkers should be nearly square, with just the corners slightly rounded off; the pads should be light, narrow, and flat not pitched upon high stuffing and must be made to fit the backs accurately ; when put on they must be buckled firmly (not tightly), so as not to sway about ; their sitting closely will add to their good appearance and prevent sore backs. The necessity for perfectly well-fitting collars has been already pointed out. Whips to a four in-hand coachman are what a good fly-rod is to a fisherman ; they should be perfectly balanced, made of well- seasoned holly, yew, or blackthorn (the latter being the most difficult to get), the stick as nearly five feet long as possible, and the thong ten feet. 1 The stick should be pliable, not stiff, yet strong enough to use in a gale of wind, and the thong made of the best horse-hide to match the weight and strength of the stick. Many of the whips sold in the shops are too long in the stick, and will be found to exceed the measure- ment here suggested as the best. Until the novice has acquired a certain amount of proficiency in ' catching ' his whip and in using it, there is no harm in his having his thong slightly heavy 1 If the stick is five feet long, nine feet six inches is ample length for the thong. Indeed, ten feet I consider better. Double the length of the stick and no whipcord point B. THE COACH-HOUSE, HARNESS-ROOM, ETC. 99 in proportion to the stick ; while, if the latter has a convenient knot just below the quill, his maiden attempts at catching his whip will be facilitated. A very little soft soap rubbed on the thong will make it rather more pliable and easy to manage ; but when some progress has been made, these aids to beginners should be promptly dispensed with. A few leather points should always be carried, which can easily be plaited on ; nothing is so bad, especially in wet weather, as whipcord. A jointed whip, strapped on a board, should also be kept in every coach. Single and pair-horse whips are sometimes made of other materials, but the holly, yew, and blackthorns are best. They are made in all sorts and sizes, suitable to every purpose. DRIVING APPLIANCES : POLES, POLE-CHAINS, POLE- HEADS, POLE-PIECES, RELEASING-GEAR, AND TRACE- BOLTS. Poles must, of course, be made of the very best well- seasoned ash, not the slightest flaw being allowed, or else some fearful accident sooner or later is sure to occur. In most private pair-horse carriages they are made much too long, and this only impairs their strength. It is not, however, of so much importance as in a coach, where a long pole necessitates the leaders being put to too far from their work, which not only decreases their motive power, but also gives them a better chance of snapping the pole should any accident occur. The average length of a coach-pole should be from ten feet eight inches to ten feet ten inches. The best pole-chains are those one end of which is fastened to a langet frequently called a bridle which slips over the end of the pole-hook, and fits into its place at the end of the polehead, the other end of the pole-chain having a long hook. This langet being continually on the move, keeps the horses' shoulders fresh ; whereas the fixed langet, to which the pole- chains are fastened by rivets and nuts, gives no play at all, and is also dangerous, insomuch that nuts and rivets must wear in time. When a nut gets loose the pole-chain drops off, and H 2 ioo DRIVING. then where are you ? Pole-pieces are in most frequent use in pair-horse carriages, except mail-phaetons, of all descriptions. They should be made of the best tanned, soundest leather, and be kept perfectly clean, soft and dry, otherwise they will soon become rotten and dangerous. The same reason which induced us to make mention of some new collars, leads, at this stage, to a notice of some in- ventions in connection with poles, pole-chains, and shafts. The sight of a fallen horse is, unfortunately, by no means uncommon in London and other large towns ; nor will the spectator forget how great is the difficulty in releasing the horse from the carriage. To render this an operation of greater ease several contrivances have been invented. One of the earliest, we believe, is the Reliance Slip Link, patented by Messrs. Bezer & Thomas, and now manufactured and sold by the Phoenix Metal Die Co., Princes Street, Stamford Street, E.G. This is used at the end of the pole-chain, instead of the ordi- nary hook. When a horse falls, the pole-chain or pole-piece is often drawn so tight that neither hook nor buckle can be unfastened ; but if the slip link be used, pressure on a spring releases the catch, the chain comes away at once, and the horse can be then detached from the vehicle. Another candidate for public patronage is Mr. F. Lacey (4 Price's Folly, Cooper's Arms Lane, Putney, London, S.W.), who, in order to facilitate the release of fallen horses, invented a ' pole-head slip,' which is fashioned on this wise. At the pole-head, in lieu of the ordinary link or loop for the reception of pole-chain or pole- piece respectively, are two brass or gun-metal branches at right angles to the pole ; and at the extremity of the latter is a screw something like the breech-piece of a punt gun. To release a horse, unscrew the head ; the branches come away, and the hor-je is free. An invention especially applicable to pole-pieces is that of Mr. Craddock (370 Gray's Inn Road, King's Cross). Instead of a buckle, this pole-piece has a tongue passing beneath a loop, and a small peg passing through the pole-piece fits into THE COACH-HOUSE, a hole in the tongue, which it holds fast To disengage a fallen horse, it is merely necessary to withdraw the peg. The same inventor has an extraordinary appliance for single harness. The pad is, in this case, the seat of the apparatus. The back-band is divided, and the crupper-strap, instead of being attached to the pad in the ordinary way, is provided, as are both ends of the back-band, with leather tongues and brass loops. The pad, strengthened with metal, is perforated at each side and at the back to receive these three ends, which, when in place, are all pierced by a single bolt which fits into the pad behind the bearing-rein hook. When the horse falls, the with- drawal of the bolt on the pad releases the back -band and crupper. Woolnough's (2 Elizabeth Street, Eaton Square, London, S.W.) Liberator Roller and Trace- Bolt seeks to compass the same end by the head of the bolt being movable, and screwing into a socket formed in the shank, so that, by unscrewing the head, the trace can be slipped off in case of accident. In addition to the foregoing, Mr. J. S. Waller, of Whitchurch, Salop, has patented a new Trace-Bolt, which can be used in double or single harness. In the latter case, the eye of the trace, instead of being longitudinal in form, is merely a round hole, through which a brass peg goes, fitting into a slot ; on pulling a spring the peg is withdrawn, and the trace falls out ; the principle is the same in the double-harness arrangement ; but the absence of shafts necessitates the bolt being fitted to the splinter-bar. In referring to these contrivances, we repeat that we do so without any knowledge save in the case of Waller's trace-bolts of their working. To one and all of these appliances objection may be taken. One may be too complicated ; another, though excellent in theory, may prove unworkable in practice ; some may be thought unsightly ; in others defective mechanism may be the weak point ; while the coachman of olden days may disapprove the whole collection through a hatred to ' newfangled notions.' The inventions noted in the preceding pages, however, are but samples of the innumerable patents taken out in connection with harness and stable tta: : DRIVING. appliances. Bits to stop pullers are almost countless. A few years ago a sailor invented what he called a ' horse subjugator,' for the speedy and effectual checking of runaways. This was simply a modified garotte. In lieu of rings for bearing-reins were a couple of blocks through which was rove a line which came to the hand of the driver. Should the horse happen to bolt, the coachman had simply to take up his cord rein, give it a lusty jerk, and hang on with all his might until the horse was sufficiently near strangulation to stop. Then there was the electric anti-crib-biting manger, which gave a galvanic shock to the horse on his attempting to seize the manger with his teeth. In short, an interesting book might be written concerning inven- tions in relation to horses and stables, and the failures which have waited upon a vast expenditure of time and money. BREAKS. Breaks are looked upon by the old school of coachmen as innovations, not always of the very best kind ; they (the old coachmen) were accustomed to keep time with heavy loads, through all weathers, having only the assistance of a good skid or slipper and an active guard, and they rather scorn this extraneous assistance. There is no doubt, however, that the patent breaks are very frequently of immense use ; they have prevented scores of accidents by helping to stop horses when they meant going, or when they began any other of their little games ; they have saved many a poor wheeler's legs going down hills, and have oftentimes been of untold service to a coachman whose 'arms were beginning to go.' Yet some at least of the 'old school' decline to recognise the merits of the comparatively new invention. For example, Mr. Birch Reynardson, the author of ' Down the Road,' writes, ' I have seen a coachman pull up his horses at the famed White Horse Cellar with his reins in two hands, and then put on his " patent break," I suppose to stop his coach, lest his horses should move on, which in olden days they were not much THE COACH-HOUSE, HARNESS-ROOM, ETC. 103 inclined to do, after they had done their ten miles an hour, with " twelve out and four in " and luggage in proportion.' Why the invention of the patent break should not have been received with a shout of universal approval, it is difficult to tell, unless indeed it was that English coachmen would not take kindly to a French invention. The oldest of the old school would not object to using well-fitting harness and easy bits in order that the horses might go with comfort to themselves ; nor would they, when going uphill, add needlessly to the draught by picking out all the soft, broken, or stony parts of the road. That being so, why on earth should they affect to deride a mechanical contrivance which lessens the strain on a horse's limbs when descending a hill ? It has been said, and truly, that in inexperienced hands they are made a great deal too much use of, and generally at the wrong time ; for nothing looks so bad, or uncoachmanlike, as to put on the break at every little decline on the road, or when pulling up at the end of the stage, which performance may be too often seen at Hatchett's. This, however, is scarcely a fair argument against the break. That it can be abused is unques- tionable, and it is equally a fact that the continual abuse of it has manufactured more bad coachmen, and more wheelers that won't even try to stop a coach, than can possibly be believed. But whips and curb-bits are also open to abuse ; yet no one has advised that all coachmen should drive their horses in snaffles, or, like a famous tandem-driver who could never master the use of a whip, leave that implement behind, and employ a pea-shooter instead 1 Moreover, a break may come in useful in the event of a pole breaking, or on some unlooked- for emergency. So far as can be ascertained, the earliest form of skid was that which required some one to alight to put it on and take it off ; the next step was the skid which, by means of a line and crank, the coachman could himself put on and take off ; and some got so clever at taking it off that they would drive over any little unevenness and jerk the skid off when the coach 104 DRIVING. jumped. With respect to the invention of this line and crank break there is, or was a few years ago, in the bar of the Black Horse Inn, Exeter, a great earthenware jug capacious enough to hold nearly a dozen of champagne, and on this Brobdingnagian vessel is an inscription to the effect that it was presented to a certain Paul Collings, by coachmen and others, as a sort of thankoffering for having devised this particular form of break. This Paul Collings was a little eight- stone man who once used to drive a coach between Exeter and Plymouth, and was at work about fifty or sixty years ago. The writer of this chapter has seen the jug, and heard the story from the old coachman's son, the landlord of the inn in question but in other quarters the invention has been ascribed to different people. Paul Collings, senior, once created no small sensation on the road by crawling into the front boot during a heavy shower of rain. He had no passengers at the time, and no coachman being visible, it was thought that the horses had started off by them- selves. A horseman gave chase, and after a long ride was not very well pleased at seeing the little man's head appear out of the boot ! We believe that about twenty-five years ago a break was invented which acted automatically directly the holding back of the horses put pressure upon the pole ; but the plan did not answer. Then there was a further tribute to science when Mr. E. Onslow-Secker, who drove his coach, 'The Quicksilver,' from Folkestone to Canterbury, invented a break, which ap- peared to answer every purpose, for it can be applied or taken off either by hand or foot, and is powerful enough almost to skid the wheels. IDS CHAPTER VI. THE COST OF A CARRIAGE. BY ALFRED E. T. WATSON. is the object of this chapter to give, so far as is possible, some practical information as to the cost of keeping a carriage. Everything depends, it need hardly be said, upon the sort of carriages that it is pro- posed to keep, and also upon the manner in which they are kept ; and over this expenditure the judicious master will exercise much control if he cares to give a little attention to the subject. Many men order their carriages to the door, hasten out when they are ready to start, jump in, and are driven off at once ; and unless it chances that masters such as these have those treasures of servants which are not very common, it is probable that their coachmaker's bills will be high. Too often the servants, knowing what little attention 106 DRIVING. their master pays to his carnage, are careless and neglectful ; the carriage is either not washed at all, or it is only half done. The under part and corners are scamped. Dirt means wear, and it is thus expensive to keep dirty carriages. The sensible master, on the other hand, when his carriage is announced, makes time to walk round and examine the vehicle and harness, and the consequence is that the coachman, know- ing that shortcomings will be noticed and mentioned, does his own work and takes care to see that the men under him do theirs. The master has his reward when the bill comes in, and finds that the few minutes he has bestowed upon his be- longings have been highly remunerative. Most persons who keep one carriage choose a waggonette if for country use, or a brougham for town. The former, as remarked in a previous chapter, is a comparatively modern invention that is to say, it has only been in use some forty years. Of late years it has extensively taken the place of the phaeton, and is in many respects a more convenient carriage for general use perhaps the most convenient that could be desired, though it is never wise to suggest that finality has been reached. The waggonette may be of any size, for one horse or two ; access to the body of the vehicle is easy, for the steps behind can be arranged in any way that is suitable, the seats can be made to fold down so that the carriage may be used for the conveyance of large quantities of luggage and a great advantage a hood can be constructed for use when needed, the addition being kept in the coach-house slung on pulleys so as to be readily lowered and fitted or raised. Thus fitted, the waggonette becomes a sort of miniature omnibus. With carriages, as with so many other things, it pays best in the long run to get a thoroughly well made vehicle from a good maker. With luck it is often possible to pick up a sound and serviceable article second hand, and if this be overhauled and approved by an expert, money can doubtless be saved ; but such chances, if they come, are outside the range of our present enquiry. A waggonette of first-class manufacture, well, but not expensively, THE COST OF A CARRIAGE. 107 fitted, will cost about 80 guineas for a single horse or 1 20 guineas for a pair ; let us strike an average and say zoo/. To estimate the cost of a horse we are now endeavouring to show how a carriage can be most economically kept, and so imagine that a single horse only is in question is a difficult business to approach with anything like precision, because horses vary so much in price, and it may be added the most costly, unless bought with judgment, are often worth least. It may be said, however, that a man ought to be able to get a sound and sufficiently good-looking beast to draw his waggonette for 4o/., perhaps less. Single-horse harness may be put down at 8/. to io/., and the requisites for a stable at i2/. ; we are imagin- ing that an empty coach-house and stable have to be stocked and put into going order. Into this question, however, we may go a little more closely, as the present chapter is intended to be thoroughly practical. What are the requisites, it may be asked is there anything besides a pail, a few brushes, and a curry-comb ? A gentleman who was inexperienced in horse-keeping would probably be surprised at the number of things for which the coachman asked him, when directed to furnish the stable, and we give a detailed list of the articles which the master of a single horse may reasonably be requested to provide if his carriage is to be turned out properly. The prices are appended. In some cases a few shillings might be temporarily saved, but in this, as in so many other matters, the best articles are the cheapest in the long run. Thus, a cheap brush is thrown down, and the back comes off at once ; it is used, and the bristles come out ; but the well-made brush stands wear. Our list includes : One set of shoebrushes, los. 6d. ; three leathers, js. 6d. ; two sponges, io.y. ; one body brush, 6s. 6d. ; one curry-comb, is. ; one spoke brush, 5^. 6d. ; two water brushes, <)s. ; one dandy brush, 2s. ; one crest brush, 4^. ; one set of boot-top brushes, Js. 6d. ; one inside carriage brush, 6^. 6d. ; one hoof brush, 2s. 6d. ; one gate scrubber, 6^. 6d. ; one scraper, 2s. gd. ; one mane comb, 2s. 6d. ; one trimming comb, is. ; one pair of scissors, 5-$-. 6d. ; one picker, is. 6d. ; two oil loS DRIVING. tins, 3J. ; one stable broom, 3^. ; one cane basket (large), 4-y. ; one fork, 3^. 6d. ; one corn sieve, 2s. 6d. ; one measure, is. ; one shovel, 3-r. ; one hair broom, 43. 6d. ; half bushel of sand, is. 6d. ; one keg of olive oil soap, y. 6d. ; one flask of oil, is. ; one steel burnisher, 4^. 6d. ; one brand for brushes, 5.$-. 6d. ; one stall brush, $s. ; one box boot-top powder, 8d. ; six white rubbers, gs. ; six dusters, 4^. 6d. ; one bronze brass staff, is. ; one pair of clogs, ns.6d. ; two bottles of blacking, 2s. ; Total, 87. 4^. $d. Horse clothing makes up about the I2/. named. A suitable and competent groom will be well paid with 5