154 " NE SUBITO." 



miles an hour would be the pace, and if I know any- 

 thing of pace, or carriages, I conceive the carriage, on 

 being disengaged, would not lose its impetus at once, 

 but a few yards would get it on the lock. If then 

 some bones and necks were not smashed, they must 

 be of some tougher material than iron or steel. I 

 have a vague idea that when horses run away in 

 harness the carriage generally runs after them ; but 

 if the carriage will not run, the horses cannot. Upon 

 this principle it strikes me, that instead of puzzling 

 our brains about stopping the horses, the far simpler 

 thing would be to stop the carriage. This the drag will 

 do, not at once I allow, and so much the safer ; nor will 

 it stop the horses at once, or bring them on their 

 heads like the choker, but it will very shortly bring 

 them to a confort able little toddle, nor will they object 

 to be brought to a stand-still, which will give them 

 time to consider what fools they have been making 

 of themselves. This is better than making minced- 

 meat of their master, or, worse, their fair mistress. 

 People should consider, that with a heavy weight, as 

 with a coach for instance, the lives of sixteen or 

 eighteen persons depend on four things principally, a 

 flaw in either of which is all but certain death to 

 some and fractured bones to others : these are, the 

 pole, the pole chain, the ring in the hames, and the 

 hame strap. If only one of these gives way going 

 down a hill, good night, for one wheeler can't hold a 

 coach ; and should a pole snap there is nothing to hold 

 her. Thus, whether we take it as safety to ourselves, 

 or safety and ease to horses, the coachman or driver, 

 be he who he may, shows that he is neither, if he risks 

 his own, his passengers' and his horses' limbs, with- 

 out a drag to his carriage in hilly countries. I hold 



