“At the back,” says Sir Walter, “was built in a large box for provisions, the full width and depth of the cart, the back seat forming the lid; the tail-board was used only as a foot-rest. An adjustable centre seat with backrest could be used so as to provide accommodation for six passengers. A white canvas tilt on wooden hoops with sunblinds at the sides, which could be strapped up when not wanted, covered the whole body of the cart.”
And similar to the Cape cart is the Whitechapel cart, which brings me to a brief consideration of the dog-carts.
As originally designed, the dog-cart seems to have been built high, and, as its name implies, for the purpose of carrying dogs. Such a vehicle would seat four, a roomy, comfortable trap “with space under the seats, where a brace of pointers or other dogs could lie at ease.” As I have said in a preceding chapter, the sides of the cart “were made with Venetian slats to provide ventilation.” Such a cart, however, proved so agreeable that no long time elapsed before its original purpose was lost sight of, and it became one of the commonest of country carriages. Built on a small scale it was admirably suited for pony or cob. Numerous varieties exist. In the tandem cart, as generally constructed, the driver’s seat is high—the only cart, indeed, of the kind to maintain any height at all. In the Ralli cart two seats are placed back to back, the foot-rest to the latter closing on the body when required. (Built somewhat on the lines of the ralli, by the way, is the Indian tonga, “a rather low, hooded vehicle ... furnished for draught by a pair of ponies on the curricle principle with pole and bar.”) The Battlesden, Bedford, and Malvern carts are other varieties. More popular, perhaps, than any of these is the governess cart, which, while really in a class by itself, may be mentioned here. This is a low and particularly safe carriage, in which the seats are placed at the sides, as in the waggonette, and the door is at the back. An improvement on the governess cart, though not nearly so popular, is the Princess car, first designed in 1893. Here the back door is dispensed with, the entrance being in front. “The driving seat is arranged on a slide, whereby it can be moved forwards or backwards to adjust the balance; and it also enables the driver to sit facing the horse instead of sitting sideways as in the governess cart.”
In the last chapter I pointed out the chief varieties of public carriages. Of these the hansom and the omnibus have undergone considerable changes. The hansom was enormously improved by Mr. Forde, a Wolverhampton coachbuilder, in 1873, when the Society of Arts offered a prize for the best two-wheeled public conveyance. Mr. Forde’s carriage was much lighter than the older hansoms, and “its merits attracted the appreciative attention of foreigners, whereby an export trade became established.” Four years later another vehicle, the two-wheeled brougham, was introduced, but did not meet with success. The Floyd hansom of 1885 showed other improvements, and for the first time the hansom became a private carriage. Here the “side windows were made to open, as were two small windows at the back of the cab.” For a short while, indeed, the private hansom was one of the smartest of gentlemen’s carriages. Then in 1889 was shown another hansom with a movable hood. This was wholly unsuccessful, but the Arlington cab, a Dorchester invention of this time, may still be seen in provincial towns to which the taximeter petrol cab has not yet reached. The chief peculiarity about this hansom is its doors, which, instead of reaching only half-way up and being constructed at a backward angle, reach from door to roof and are upright—thus giving a more spacious interior. These doors are “fitted with sliding glasses in the top part after the manner of an ordinary brougham door.” A brougham hansom was introduced in 1887. “This afforded sitting-room inside for three or four; it was entered at the back, and when the door was shut, a seat across it was so arranged that there was no possibility of the door opening till the occupants’ weight was off the seat. The driver’s seat was in front, on the roof of the vehicle.” A four-wheeled hansom was also seen in London some twenty-five years ago. Here the driver’s seat was behind the carriage on a level with the roof.
“Everybody knows,” remarks Sir Walter Gilbey, “that the hansom, by reason of its steadiness, is an exceedingly comfortable conveyance; there is no vehicle that runs more easily, particularly when the load is truly balanced.” But in spite of such improvements as rubber tyres and patent windows, the hansom seems doomed.
Shillibeer’s huge omnibuses were succeeded by smaller vehicles of similar construction. For some years no passengers were carried upon the roof except one or two beside the driver. Then in 1849 an “outside seat down the centre of the roof was added,” to reach which you had to climb an iron ladder. This continued until 1890, when the much more convenient “garden-seats” were substituted, and a curved flight of steps took the place of the rather dangerous ladder. Private omnibuses were first constructed about 1867. They contained a rumble at the back for the footman, but this was speedily dispensed with. As built to-day, they are of various sizes.
One other carriage may be mentioned, and then I am done. This is the Irish car. Here, as in the larger bian, the seats are arranged back to back and sideways. “The wheels are very low and are concealed as far as the axle-boxes, or farther, by the panel of the footboard, which panel is hinged to the end of the tray, either side of which forms the seat, to allow of its being turned up when not in use.” Occasionally there is a well between the seats for small packages. In private cars of this kind there is a small seat in front for the driver, but this is rarely to be found in the public vehicles. The width of the Irish car is enormous, and occasionally leads the neophyte into trouble. Outside Ireland, I believe, the car is not seen.
“Walking in the pleasant environs of Paris,” wrote Mr. H. C. Marillier some seventeen years ago, in an article entitled The Automobile: A Forecast, “or even further afield, upon the broad routes nationales of Charente and La Beauce, it is no uncommon thing to meet on a summer’s day a little open vehicle flitting along without apparent means of motion, upon noiseless rubber-shod wheels, or panting forth a gentle warning from a square-shaped box in front. Two, and sometimes three, persons are seated in it, one of whom drives by means of a handle. To stop or to start again requires the turn of a screw or the push of a pedal. Such, in its most accomplished and most graceful form, is the automobile. To see it pass at racing speed—some of these little machines can spurt at twenty miles an hour—takes one’s breath away at first. The apparition is uncanny.”
In another passage he speaks of these horseless carriages as playing “a prominent part as the natural successors of the hansom cab and the omnibus,” and draws what must then have been a fanciful picture of a city upon whose roads there would be seen almost as many horseless as horse-driven vehicles. To-day we know what has happened since these words were written. The hansom is a rarity, except during a strike of petrol-car drivers. The omnibus is a speedy machine with a powerful engine. The growler persists, but only for the benefit of those with much luggage or for those afraid of the internal combustion engine, that extraordinary discovery which has revolutionised locomotion even more than did steam eighty years ago. With such facts as these it would be easy to prophesy a total extinction of horse-driven vehicles except for purely ornamental purposes. Yet I believe that there may be a reaction in favour of a more leisurely means of locomotion. As yet it is impossible to be truly dignified in even the most gorgeously appointed motor-car. “Carriage people” no longer form a class, and the old coach-building firms which have not followed the times and shown one or other make of automobile in their rooms are few in number. Mr. Marillier, moreover, in the article just quoted, speaks of “that ideal future when life shall consist of sitting in a chair and pressing buttons”; but the horse is not yet extinct, and although it is not probable that any horse-carriages of an entirely new type will be constructed, I imagine that the older forms will persist, at any rate, for the next century or two. Indeed, to my mind, there must always be the man who will prefer the reins to the driving wheel. And who can blame him for the choice?