The Dog-cart. 543 



wheeled carriage into families who were previously too proud to drive a market cart, but 

 raised a number of ingenious country wheelwrights to the rank of coach-builders, at a time 

 when none of the great men of Long Acre would condescend to build anything that was 

 not finished and varnished like a piece of cabinet work, lined and stuffed like a drawing- 

 room couch, strong enough and heavy enough to last for a generation, at a cost of at least 

 seventy guineas, in its simplest stanhope gig form. Although the exemption has long been 

 repealed, the result remains in a number of low-priced, two-wheeled vehicles, equally con- 

 venient for domestic and sporting purposes, for carrying children, small parcels, or luggage, 

 to the station. " I will send the dog-cart to meet you," is the common postscript of a 

 letter from either a mansion or a farm-house. The term has been naturalised in France as 

 the " To-cart." 



The sporting character of the original dog-cart has been attenuated to nothing, and 

 the wheels, assisted by modern ingenuity in the management of axle-trees, arc made of the 

 best height for draught, while the body is kept low enough for safety and convenience. The 

 family or private two-wheeled carriage may be classed in three types : — 



1. To hold two only. 



2. To hold four, dos-d-dos. 



3. To carry four inside, on the old Irish inside car pattern. 



The sporting types are the original Oxford dog-cart, admirably calculated for tandem 

 driving ; and the old Whitechapel, more favourably known since the Prince of Wales made 

 Sandringham his country seat as " the Norfolk shooting-cart," the most capacious of all two- 

 wheeled sporting and family carriages ; which may be built plain enough to take pigs to 

 market, and handsome enough to convey a party of cavalry subalterns to the meet of a 

 crack pack, or with dogs and guns to a shooting party at the " Duke's." To ride safely in 

 a high two-wheeled carriage you require a horse with good trotting action and sound feet. 

 A game but groggy horse can safely pull a four-wheeler. 



THE PRIVATE HANSOM, 



In this list of English pleasure-carriages, which might be extended, in the shape of a 

 catalogue, to volumes, the private hansom, so called after the original ingenious and unfortunate 

 inventor, IVIr. Hansom, architect of the Birmingham town-hall, must not be omitted. It is 

 essentially a man's carriage for town use, in favour amongst surgeons in such practice that 

 they can also afford to keep a brougham for inclement weather, surveyors, contractors, and 

 others, who require to hurry about on business and get in and out frequently. The hansom 

 has the advantage of air, and affords a very healthy pleasant sort of exercise. Although 

 built to hold two, it suits one with very little luggage better, and is quite out of place where 

 the ground to be traversed presents many steep hills. Ladies like a ride in a hansom, by 

 way of a change, but for constant use prefer a single or miniature brougham, which is more 

 generally useful, and on the whole not more expensive. A private hansom requires a better 

 horse than a brougham, if not so fashionable, because, in spite of the very best balancing, 

 there must be some weight in going down hills ; and he should also be fast, equal to at 

 least twelve miles an hour when required — fourteen are better. Pace and ease of motion 

 are the features of this vehicle, which is a very useful addition to a well-furnished coach-house 

 at a mansion where no severe rise intervenes on the road to a railway station to and from 

 which the head of the establishment has frequent occasion to travel. The hansom should be 



