FOUR IN HAND. 137 



his efforts to make them go on. The consequence was he 

 ^yent right past tlie hotel, with his hands right up 

 parallel with liis chin and stopped them uncere- 

 moniously at the next hotel, some 40 yards beyond our 

 stopping point, and if he had been on the box by himself I 

 don't think he would have stox)i>e(l yet. This is a case 

 of "too easy." There are, I am sorry to say, a good 

 many more lilve him who tliink because they hold the 

 reins — not drive — over a team a short distance on a 

 straight road imagine they are i^erfect coachmen, and 

 that the faster they go the more they think they know. 

 Unless you are an experienced diiver it is not only 

 dangerous but foolhardj^ to drive fast, by so doing you 

 run into danger quicker, and if in danger have less time 

 to extricate yourself. Coach horses should never be ex- 

 tended or be at the top of their speed, if they are they 

 soon tire. Some people think that because they are 

 riding behind four horses they ought to go further and 

 faster than with one or two. They do not take into con- 

 sideration the weight that those four horses have to 

 pull, even a break with eight passengers will weigh 

 thirty hundred pounds, or 750 pounds to each horse. 

 Another important thing, and one very seldom thought 

 of, a horse whose natural gait is say 10 miles an hour, 

 you can drive him 30 miles a day by going slow, say 

 seven miles an hour, but to drive him at his top speed 



