CH. XI HEAD-TERRET 1 99 



'Nimrod,' in 1834, comments upon the fashion as 

 follows (Northern Tour, p. 31) : — 



1 It was now I found that I had taken leave of 

 1 coaching in anything like its proper form, at least, 

 ' for some time to come ; for the horses were slow, 

 ' the coachman slower, and the stupid, unworkman- 

 ' like, unsafe practice of running the leader's reins 

 ' throuoh the throat-latches instead of the head-ter- 

 ' rets of the wheel horses was the order of the day ;' 

 and again (p. 340), ' Such a thing as a leader's rein 

 1 running through a wheeler's throat-latch, instead 

 ' of throueh his head-terret, is not to be seen on the 

 ' Defiance.' The objections to using the head-terret 

 are, that when a wheeler tosses his head, he disturbs 

 the lead-rein more than when it passes through the 

 side ring, which is more flexible, and which moves 

 without jerking the rein ; that the rein, when over- 

 head, sometimes gets behind the horse's ear, and 

 often in wet weather gets the foretop hair tangled 

 round it ; and that it is difficult to reach up so high 

 to pass the rein when changing horses. When 

 a head-terret is used, it is 

 screwed into a plate sewed 

 into the crown piece, or, 

 more frequently, there is 

 a double ring (shown at 

 A, Fig. 86), which to some p IG< g6. 



extent prevents the rein 



from getting behind the ear. With a single head- 

 terret the same result may be obtained by putting 



