120 HORSE AND MAN. 



The most extraordinary portion of the incident 

 was the effect upon the driver. The fall of the horse 

 did not appear to disconcert him, and he kept to his 

 seat as long as the cab was in motion. The moment 

 it stopped he rose up slowly, stooped forward, and 

 put the top of his head on the roof of the cab. 

 Then he turned a somersault in the air, and came 

 flat on his back in the road by the side of his horse. 

 The deliberation of the movement was one of the 

 most extraordinary spectacles that I ever witnessed. 



I thought that the man must have been killed 

 on the spot, or at lest stunned and insensible. But 

 he was hardly down before he was up again. What 

 had happened, or where he was, he evidently did 

 not know, but he walked round and round the cab 

 and fallen horse until the inevitable crowd sur- 

 rounded the scene of accident, and shut him from 

 sight. However, after five or six minutes had elapsed 

 I saw him again in his seat, and driving slowly away 

 from the stand. 



The uselessness of the calkin g could not have 

 been better demonstrated. It did not prevent the 

 heavily-burdened cart-horse from falling on a wet 

 road, nor the lightly burdened cab-horse from a like 

 misfortune when the surface was frozen. 



The object of the calking is to prevent the horse 

 from slipping on frozen ground or ice. The same 



