166 WHAT IS JUDICIOUS DEPENDS ON CIRCUMSTANCES. 



roads have, I allow, a good deal to do with this, but 

 this has nothing to say in extenuation of our former 

 folly ; indeed only proves, when by a very simple 

 process good roads have been made, what a set of apes 

 men must be who for centuries have been contented 

 with bad ones ! Sir J. M'Adam stands just in the posi- 

 tion of Columbus with the egg: the making good roads 

 was only a happy hit, but a hit that has rendered the 

 public his everlasting debtor. 



It is now a universal cry, "it's of no use to load a 

 horse with harness." In this I fully agree. Then 

 comes the addenda, "the less he has the better." 

 This as a general maxim I must pertinaciously deny. 

 They will say "harness heats horses;" no doubt it 

 does ; so can a man walk more pleasantly without an 

 umbrella over his head than with one, but a good 

 soaking rain makes him congratulate himself he has 

 one with him. So we need not encumber a pair of 

 horses with breeching to take a drive round the 

 Kegent's Park; but I should not think I consulted 

 their comfort during a tour in Wales, if, to avoid 

 their carrying a pound of leather each, I obliged them 

 to hold a carriage by their necks down Welsh hills. 

 The same thing would hold good in single harness, 

 nay more so, for going down hills in two -wheeled 

 carriages is the only place where they are disadvan- 

 tageous to the horse. 



Driving a journey without bearing-reins is decidedly 

 a great relief to most horses ; so, because men who 

 are coachmen are seen doing this on the road, every 

 yahoo who takes a pair in hand does the same thing 

 through the streets of London with two horses with 

 mouths like bulls. Even 1845 Commercial Gentlemen, 

 who now daily drive wholesale warehouses on wheels 



