160 WEIGHT OF METAL WILL TELL. 



look light with the same strength, horses could not 

 move them. Those enormous machines we see as 

 carts there are surprisingly light in comparison with 

 their appearance : they are nearly all wood, and not 

 certainly half the weight of our city carts : nor is one 

 of the provincial built German carriages so heavy as 

 a britska built by a fashionable London coachmaker. 

 Let me hope that horses may benefit by these hints 

 on the weight of fashionable carriages, by their 

 owners being assured, that though a carriage may 

 appear light, or draw light, on the boards of a coach- 

 maker's shop, on the road against collar they are in 

 reality specifically heavy, and if with low wheels most 

 distressing to horses. 



If people merely want a pleasant carriage to lounge 

 in about London, weight matters but little, and a 

 great deal may be sacrificed to taste and appearance ; 

 but for any carriage intended for travelling on our 

 roads, there is but one way to get such a one as will 

 save horses, which is, to order it on a good principle, 

 and limit the coachmaker as to weight. He must, for 

 his own character's sake, build it strong enough for 

 its destined purpose, and to do this he must use more 

 wood and less iron. The carriage will not be perhaps 

 so elegant, but the horses will derive incalculable 

 advantage from the order. 



I have, in alluding to horses drawing even heavy 

 weights, strongly advocated the using horses very well 

 bred, as I advocate their use for almost every purpose : 

 but I must beg to be understood as doing so only 

 where the weight is in moderation. I do not mean 

 that a thorough-bred horse is equal to draw a one- 

 horse britska with four persons in and two out, with 

 luggage. Where we really want ponderous weight to 



