Riding and Driving

by Edward L. Anderson; Price Collier

The most effective colors for this cart are: for the panels, which are carved in imitation of basket, a straw or cream, and for the shafts, wheels, etc., brightest vermilion striped with black.

Cushions of dark colors seem most appropriate for a cart painted as described, as they are in agreeable contrast; but, as they are affected by exposure to dust, rain, and the sun, drab Bedford cord is the material to be preferred.

The superior comfort of this dog-cart is attributable to the construction of its body, which is practically a box, open only at its ends on which, the rails being bent outwards, the greatest seating capacity is secured, and to the facility for getting on and off, which is of importance on long journeys, when the duties of the groom, who has been sent forward in advance, are performed by the passenger occupying the hind seat. The bright vermilion and clean straw colors of this cart are especially effective in competitions on the tan-bark by gaslight, where dark colors show to less advantage.

The cocking-cart (Plate XXXV.) is another style, which from its very smartness and dangerous height seems especially adapted to tandem driving, and is best described as the front boot of a coach on two wheels. A local tandem driver informs me that he once proposed giving his London builder an order for a cart of this kind, but though the builder declared his readiness to undertake its construction on the lines familiar to him through his ancestors who built that sort of breakneck vehicle, the customer was advised "not to trust his life on such a tower upon wheels."

The cocking-cart was used for conveying game fowls to the cock-pit, on arriving at which destination they were thought to be, from the shaking up they had received on the journey, in prime condition and temper for the coming battle.

Except to be used exclusively for fancy tandem work, I would not advise the purchase of a cocking-cart, as, for driving a single horse, it is not to be compared with either a Whitechapel or a dog-cart.

There are still other patterns of carts, some of which are very good, but I have described those I think best suited to tandem driving. Which of the many kinds of draughts for carts is most practical is a question giving rise to much discussion. It must be admitted that, whichever is used, while it may be placed a little below the level of the hames-draughts, it should never be fixed above that line.

An old tandem driver, to whose judgment I defer, informs me that, having tried all sorts of draughts, he prefers that from hooks fixed to the cross-bar, which he used many years without a galled shoulder, but which would be unsuited to carts with very high wheels and high, straight shafts. If a horse in a well-fitting collar is properly put to a cart by his harness, with saddle firmly fixed in its place, and back-band loose to allow the shafts to play in their tugs, he will work from fixed draughts without being injured. Ring hames-draughts, of old style, which are most practical of all, will contribute more to a horse's comfort than all the new fads in drawing-hooks and bars.

The most practical tandem harness, and the most effective on all horses, with all carts, and in all places, was suggested by, and in character is similar to, the four-horse harness of mail and stage-coach days, when everything useful and nothing superfluous, was the rule. Some of its salient features are its collars with angular or pointed throats, for preventing choking from pressure on the windpipe; ringed hames-draughts—least rigid, most yielding to shoulders, and most durable ever designed, and like every two metal parts working on each other (as leader's spring trace-hooks and tandem eyes of wheeler's trace-buckles), polished to avoid mutilation by friction; leader's pad, or saddle, shaped to suit the back, however sharp; strapping (as cruppers, loin-strap, etc.) unlined and unstitched, in keeping with the broad, stout traces of single thickness, of which the wheeler's, furnished with chains at the ends, are adaptable to the draughts, however long or short, of all carts without moving the points of traces or disfiguring them with three-cornered holes made by a jack-knife. The harness above described, while specially in keeping with the Whitechapel cart, is very appropriate for the more showy, highly painted dog-cart; as the more costly lined and much-sewn harness is not out of place in both these traps.

The chief objection, and almost the sole one, to the harness of my choice, is its reasonable cost—none whatever to its appearance or effect can be offered, a set each of brown and black leather costing, together, little more than the value of one set of the other kind of harness.