THE COACH-HORSE. ,ji5 



her. A roomy mare, with some blood in her, and with most of n^e good 

 points, will alone answer his purpose. She may bear about her the marks 

 of honest work (the fewer of these, however, the better,) but she must 

 not have any disease. There is scarcely a malady to which the horse 

 is subject that is not hereditary. Contracted feet, curb, spavin, roaring, 

 thick wind, blindness, notoriously descend from the sire or dam to the 

 foal. Mr. Roberts, in that useful publication, " The Veterinarian," 

 says, "Last summer I was asked my opinion of a horse. I approved of 

 his formation with the exception of the hocks, where there happened to be 

 two curbs. I was then told his sister was in the same stable : ske also 

 had two curbs. Knowing the sire to be free from these defects, I inquired 

 about the dam : she also had two confirmed curbs. She was at this time 

 running with a foal of hers, two years old, by another horse, and he also 

 had two curbs." 



The foal should be well taken care of for the first two years. It is bad 

 policy to stint, or half-starve, the growing colt. 



The colt, whether intended for a hunter or carriage-horse, may be earlier 

 handled, but should not be broken-in until three years old ; and then the 

 very best breaking-in for the carriage-horse is to make him earn a little 

 of his living. Let him be put to harrow or light plough. Going over the 

 rough ground will teach him to lift his feet well, and give him that high 

 and showy action, excusable in a carriage-horse, but excusable in no 

 other. In the succeeding winter he will be perfectly ready for the town 

 or country market. 



THE COACH-HORSE.* 



This animal has fully shared in the progress of improvement, and is as 

 different from what he was fifty years ago as it is possible to conceive. 



* Wheel carriages, bearing any resemblance to chariots, first came into use in tlio 

 reign of Richard H. about the year 1331 ; they were called whirlicotes, and were little 

 better than litters or cotes (cots) placed on wheels. We are told by Master John Stowe, 

 that " Richard 11., being threatened by the rebels of Kent, rode from the Tower of 

 London to the Miles End, and with him his mother, because she was sick and weak, in a 

 whirlicote;" and this is described as an ugly vehicle of four boards put together in a 

 clumsy manner. 



In the following year he married Anne of Luxembourg, who introduced the riding 

 upon side-saddles ; and so " was the riding in those whirlicotes forsaken, except at coro- 

 nations and such like spectacles." 



Coaches were not used until the time of Elizabeth, when we are told (Stowe's Survey 

 of London and Westminster, book i.) "divers great ladies made them coaches, and rode 

 in them up and down the countries to the great admiration of all the beholders." The 

 fashion soon spread, and he adds, what is often too true in the present day, "the world 

 runs on wheels with many whose parents were glad to go on foot." 



These coaches were heavy and unwieldy, and probably bore some rough resemblance 

 to the state coaches now used occasionally in court processions. 



The rate of travelling was as slow as the clumsiness of the horses and vehicle would 

 naturally indicate. King George H. died early on Saturday morning, Oct. 21, 1760: the 

 Duke of Devonshire, who was lord chamberlin, arrived in town from Chatsworth in three 

 days ; but a fourth and a fifth day passing over, and the lord steward, the Duke of 

 Rutland, not making his appearance, although he had not so far to travel by more than 

 thirty miles, Mr. Speaker Onslow made this apology for him, that " the Duke of Devon- 

 shire travelled at a prodigious rate, not less than Jifty miles a day!" 



To travel in the stage-coach from London to Epsom, sixteen miles, then took nearly 

 the whole day, and the passengers dined on the road. The coach from Edingburgh to 

 London started once a month, and occupied sixteen or eighteen days on the journey. A 

 person may now start from Edinburgh on Saturday evening, have two spare days in Lon- 

 don, and be back ag^ain at the Scotch metropolis to breakfast un the next Saturday. In* 



