300 ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



heavy load, and upon a smooth hard road, let it be the 

 wheel next the ditch, or any other dangerous part. A 

 coach, in going down hill, always strikes on the side that 

 the wheel is not locked. I therefore think the coachman 

 should keep as much as he can on that side of the road 

 on which the wheel is locked ; as, by crossing the road, 

 if he meets, or has to pass, anything, his coach will not 

 strike ; and by holding that way, at any time, it will 

 prevent her overturning.' This is quite correct, as the 

 coach naturally strikes in a direct line from the perch- 

 bolt. 



An accident that happened this spring to Mr. Henry 

 Wormwald corroborates what I have said of the neces- 

 sity of collecting horses, and checking the vis vivida of a 

 coach at the top of a sharp pitch or hill. He was taking 

 eleven of his friends to dine at Richmond, and in de- 

 scending the bridge at Kew, his coach got the better of 

 his horses, and away they went. Most of his passengers 

 being awake to their danger, quitted their places ; but 

 Sir Vincent Cotton, who was on the box with his friend, 

 was very roughly handled. The coach was pulled up 

 by some strong iron railings, on the spikes of which the 

 worthy Baronet was landed, and one of them ran some 

 way into his thigh. A little more and the main 

 artery would have been divided, when nothing could 

 have saved his life. A wheel horse and a leader were 

 killed — the pole having actually run through the body 

 of the latter. It was but a few days before this sad 

 accident happened, that I was of the same party with Mr. 

 Wormwald, and considered him a very pretty coachman. 



