In the manufacture of harness we have arrived at a degree of perfection, to which the invention of the patent shining leather has mainly contributed. A handsome horse well harnessed is a noble sight; yet in no country, except England, is the art of putting a horse into harness at all understood. If, however, our road horses were put to their coaches in the loose awkward fashion of the continental people, we could not travel at the rate we do. It is the command given over the coach-horse that enables us to do it.
In regard to mails, it should be observed that the proprietors who horse them are not sufficiently attentive to the state of the harness on the ground worked by night; whereas it should in reality be the best. If anything break by daylight, it is instantly observed; but it is not so in the night, as lamp-light is uncertain and treacherous. In speaking of particulars, it may be observed, that bearing-reins are a relief to the arm of the driver, but by no means to the horses. Indeed, they materially lessen the power of horses in drawing, become insufferable to them in a long journey, and fatigue them much sooner than they would otherwise be. Not only do these reins by no means serve to keep horses up; but they prevent their rising after having fallen.
When a wheel-horse has the habit of throwing up his head, which greatly annoys the mouth of the leader before him, a nose-martingale should be used. This, however, is rarely sufficient. Indeed, it is a bad custom to run the leader’s reins through terrets over the heads of the wheelers; for then every movement which the wheelers make with their heads, acts powerfully on the mouths of the leaders, whether they be good or bad. If the former, it is sometimes attended with danger: thus, a wheeler throws up his head, suddenly and powerfully shortens the rein of the leader, who is checked, and as the wheeler goes on, he brings the bar with force against the hocks of the leader, which instantly flies forward, and mischief ensues.
This, perhaps, does not last long; but one evil only takes the place of another: leaders soon learn to be, from custom, equally heedless of this check and of their driver’s hand: and their mouths become steeled by the constant tossing of the wheeler’s heads. It is thus that we sometimes hear of leaders choosing their own road in spite of the best efforts of good coachmen; and so it will always be till terrets are totally abolished. This may easily be done by conducting the leader’s rein through the rosette in which the wheeler’s outside bearing-rein, of which we have just disapproved, at present passes, and thus supersede the terret.
Terrets, however, are supposed to look well, and to have the advantage of keeping the head steady. To obviate their disadvantages, therefore, in some measure, rollers are placed in the bottom of each terret, over which the rein passes. This, in some degree, obviates the evil, as the rein no longer holds in the terret, but slides easily, giving the wheeler’s head more freedom. In all kinds of work, a tool-box is a necessary appendage to the coach. It should contain a strong screw-wrench, wheel and spring clips, a spring shackle or two, with bolts and nuts, and two chains—one for a trace, and the other shorter, with a ring at one end and hook at the other, in case of a tug giving way. In his pocket the coachman should have a short strap with a buckle at each end, as in case of almost any part of the reins, or indeed most parts of the harness breaking, it comes into use in a moment.
The following are interesting extracts on this subject, from an article in a late number of the Quarterly Review; and the work quoted and referred to in the article is intitled Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau. “With regard to the management of horses in harness, perhaps the most striking feature to English eyes is, that the Germans intrust these sensible animals with the free use of their eyes. ‘As soon as, getting tired, or, as we are often apt to term it, lazy, they see the postilion threaten them with his whip, they know perfectly well the limits of his patience, and that after eight, ten, or twelve threats, there will come a blow. As they travel along, one eye is always shrewdly watching the driver; the moment he begins his slow operation of lighting his pipe, they immediately slacken their pace, knowing as well as Archimedes could have proved, that he cannot strike fire and them at the same time: every movement in the carriage they remark; and to any accurate observer who meets a German vehicle, it must often be perfectly evident that the poor horses know and feel, even better than himself, that they are drawing a coachman, three bulky baronesses, their man and their maid, and that to do this on a hot summer’s day is no joke.’
“Now, what is our method? ‘In order to break-in the animal to draught, we put a collar round his neck, a crupper under his tail, a pad on his back, a strap round his belly, with traces at his sides; and, lest he should see that, though these things tickle and pinch, they have not power to do more, the poor intelligent creature is blinded with blinkers, and in this fearful state of ignorance, with a groom or two at his head, and another at his side, he is, without his knowledge, fixed to the pole and splinter-bar of a carriage. If he kick, even at a fly, he suddenly receives a heavy punishment which he does not comprehend; something has struck him, and has hurt him severely; but, as fear magnifies all danger, so, for aught we know or care, he may fancy that the splinter-bar which has cut him is some hostile animal, and expects, when the pole bumps against his legs, to be again assailed in that direction. Admitting that in time he gets accustomed to these phenomena—becoming, what we term, steady in harness, still, to the last hour of his existence, he does not clearly understand what it is that is hampering him, or what is that rattling noise which is always at his heels;—the sudden sting of the whip is a pain with which he gets but too well acquainted, yet the unde derivatur of the sensation he cannot explain—he neither knows when it is coming, nor what it comes from. If any trifling accident or even irregularity occurs—if any little harmless strap which ought to rest upon his back happens to fall to his side, the unfortunate animal, deprived of his eyesight, the natural lanterns of the mind, is instantly alarmed; and, though from constant heavy draught he may literally, without metaphor, be on his last legs, yet if his blinkers should happen to fall off, the sight of his own dozing master, of his own pretty mistress, and of his own fine yellow chariot in motion, would scare him so dreadfully, that off he would probably start, and the more they all pursued him the faster would he fly!’”
PLATE XLIII
