412 
THE PROJECTOR. 
STEAM COACHES AND STEAM HORSES— 
HINTS FOR A JOINT-STOCK HORSE- 
MANUFACTORY COMPANY. 
Soon shall thy arm, unconquer’d Steam! afar 
Drag the slow barge, and urge the rapid car. 
Darwin, Zoonomia. 
AX ingenious friend of mine, lately 
dead, who was a universal specu- 
lator, and almost as ambitious a genius 
as the Laputan philosophers, celebrated 
by Gulliver, has left behind him a digest 
of wonderful discoveries, phenomena 
and projects—some the result of other 
eople’s brains, and some of his own— 
in order to establish, beyond dispute, his 
favourite theory of the Perfectibility of 
Man. Many of the papers necessary for 
this purpose have fallen into our hands; 
and we think the courteous reader will 
not be disobliged to us, for occasionally 
laying before him fragments of a demon- 
stration so flattering to human self-love. 
_ One of his most sanguine speculations 
is derived from the indefinite applicabi- 
lity of steam: he proposes that it should 
no longer be confined, as now, to the 
impulse of manufacturing machinery, or 
the propulsion of steam-vessels; but 
that every species of wheel-carriage 
should, for the future, be set in motion 
by means of it. What brilliant, or re- 
sounding catastrophes.does this sublime 
preordium in the great melo-drama of 
social improvement promise! What 
gas-illuminated vistas! What more than 
magic change of metropolitan and pro- 
vincial scenery! The medium of con- 
veyance being changed from cattle to 
coals, and from “ good ones” to prime 
Wallsends, the revolution will, of course, 
extend itself to the proprietors of the 
stage and mail-coaches,—and the coach- 
offices will shift all their interesting 
localities of pickpockets, beggars, por- 
ters, Jew-boys, news-boys and barkers, 
with the agreeable appendages of stale 
oranges and stale newspapers, penknives 
guiltless of edge, and black-lead pencils 
without a grain of black-lead in their 
veins—not to mention the mob of eye- 
thrusting umbrellas, and the crowd of 
toe-crushing portmanteaus ! 
Only conceive the instantaneous effect 
of one stroke of the harlequin-wand of 
speculation!. Instead of “the Comet,” 
“the Dart,” or “Fly,” starting from the 
Whitehorse-cellar or the Black Bear, 
the Bolt-in- Tun, or the Swan-with-two- 
Necks,. they will, from the specified 
moment of the new era, commence their 
various journeys from the leading coal- 
wharfs,—the Irongate, or Old Barge- 
house, the Adelphi, or Scotland-yard ! 
Hints for a Joint-Stock Horse-Manufactory Company. (June 1, 
Time will be preserved quite as punc- 
tiliously as now, although it may not be 
requisite for coachee’s whip to come in 
contact with the ear of the off-leader, 
precisely as the minute-hand of the neigh- 
bouring dial indicates the stroke of six. 
The change on the road will be 
equally amusing und adyantageous.— 
Instead of the annoyance of waiting a 
quarter of an hour, at every post-town, 
for fresh horses, it will be only necessary 
to lose a minute or two ia calling for a 
fresh scuttle of coals! A steep ascent, 
which often compels a gouty old gentle- 
man, or asthmatic old lady, to walk 
against their will, or puts the proprietor 
to the expense of an additional pair of 
horses, might then be met by an addi- 
tional pair of bellows! The smoke pro- 
ceeding from the top of the vehicle by 
day, may by night be converted into gas, 
so as to direct. and enlighten, at the 
same time that it impels. Some little 
prejudice may, it is true, be entertained 
by anti-perfectible people against the’ 
heat of the fire, more especially during _ 
the dog-days. But this disadyantage 
(if, indeed, it ought to be called one, 
which, without the aid and expense of 
medicine, may reduce troublesome obe- 
sity to an alert and convenient lean- 
ness) would, at all events, be counter- 
balanced by the advantages which out- 
side passengers (particularly during the 
winter months) would derive from it: 
and yaletudinarians might save so much 
expense in night-caps, travelling-caps, 
belchers, under-coats and upper-ceats, 
as considerably to diminish their average 
yearly expenses of travelling. The 
coachman, indeed, could no longer with 
propriety or economy wear “ lily top- 
pers,” and “white upper toggery ;” but 
the change will not be amiss from a 
dress which is glaringly painful to the 
eyesight, especially when the snow is on 
the ground, to that “ customary suit of 
solemn black” which adorns the mem- 
bers of another profession, equally con- 
versant with the various advantages of 
coke and smoke,—videlicet the chimney- 
sweepers. The change, indeed, would 
not only be consistent with that sober 
gravity becoming men of “true science,” 
as coachmen uniformly are, but contri- 
bute greatly to the picturesque effect 
produced by the locomotion of public 
vehicles, on the main road. Novelty 
being allowed to be a constituent ele- 
ment of the picturesque, nothing more 
novel can well be conceived than the 
image of a Jehu adroitly fingering the 
valve-cords of his machine, instead of 
“the ribands;” and brandishing a huge 
poker, 
