THE ROAD. 
or eight miles without injury, it is much better that a 
coachman should work his ground double that is, with 
the same team down and up if the hour suits, than 
that another man should touch them.* Some persons 
object to two sweats a day, but it is nonsense ; how 
does the race-horse run his heats ? and how many sweats 
does a roadster or a hunter get on the same day? In 
very fast work, it is better for cattle to run five miles in 
and out, with an hour or two of rest between being 
taken from one coach and put to the other, than nine 
miles straight on end. 
A wonderful change has taken place in the English 
coach-horse, as well as the sort of horses put into other 
kinds of harness ; but this has been progressive. Fifty 
years ago, the idea of putting a thorough-bred horse into 
harness would have been considered preposterous. In 
the carriages of our noblemen and gentleman, the long- 
tailed black, or Cleveland bay each one remove from 
the cart-horse was the prevailing sort, and six miles an 
hour the extent of his pace ; and he cost from thirty 
pounds to fifty pounds. A few years back, a nobleman 
gave seven hundred guineas for a horse to draw his 
cabriolet : two hundred guineas is now an everyday 
price for a horse of this description, and a hundred and 
fifty for a gentleman's coach-horse ! Indeed, a pair of 
* So material, indeed, is this point considered by one of our best 
judges of road coach-work, that he denies the possibility of any coach 
keeping its exact time over a long distance of ground, unless each man 
drives his own horses, with short stages for each team. 
103 
