LONG AND SHORT WHEEL-REINS. 209 



' snapped in the socket." This is not the first time I have 

 found the word ' socket ' figuratively employed ; but I 

 never found it applied to the futchells of a coach. A 

 little opposition, however, is the life of ' the road,' and 

 there is no getting on without it. If, therefore, Jehu 

 finds me off the road, I hope he will pull me up ; as I 

 shall not fail to do by him if he continue the subject ; 

 for, as the Vicar of Wakefield's son found out, on his 

 arrival in Holland, that before he could teach the 

 Dutch English, it was, unfortunately, necessary that he 

 himself should understand Dutch ; so we must neither 

 of us attempt to teach others what we do not know 

 ourselves. 



LONG AND SHORT WHEEL-REINS. 



Whether it is better to drive four horses with the 

 long or short wheel-rein, must, as I before observed, 

 depend upon circumstances. As for myself, I was 

 taught with the short, by the celebrated Jack Bayley — 

 no mean authority — when he was on the Birmingham 

 ' Old Prince,' from Oxford to London, and when, on the 

 Salt Hill Ground, he instructed the Etonians, and brought 

 out some first-class men in his way. Bayley was a first- 

 rate coachman of the old school, and had different tackle 

 to deal with to what is to be found at the present time 

 on that road ; and the man who could now bring the 

 ' Old Prince ' over that oround with four tons weight 

 about her, at the rate of eight miles an hour, could not 



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