CARRIAGES. 37 



This, moreover, was the taxed bill, after between 3007. and 400/1 

 had been struck off. 



A writer about this period (1765) describes the whip of 

 the coachman who drove the ' flying machines ' drawn by six 

 horses, between Dover and London, twenty-eight leagues a 

 day. ' The coach-whip,' he says, ' is nothing else but a long 

 piece of whalebone covered with hair, and with a small cord at 

 the end of it.' Such a whip could not have been effective, and 

 indeed, according to the traveller, it was not. ' It only serves 

 to make a show, as their horses scarce ever feel it,' he writes. 

 The ' flying machine,' in spite of its name, was doubtless so 

 heavy that no speed was sought. The length of the * day ' in 

 which those eighty-four miles were covered is not stated. 



The next carriage we hear of is the barouche, a sturdy 

 species of box so near the ground that no step seems to have 

 been necessary ; there is a perch for a footman to stand 

 behind ; the coachman, if the picture be correct, is very far 

 forward over his horses. There are hoods, made apparently 

 much after the existing fashion. The barouche is, in fact, in 

 all essentials very much like a coach with a movable instead 

 of a fixed top. 



During all this time the roads were so bad that ruts of in- 

 credible depth are described. When a waggon stuck fast, as 

 waggons had a habit of doing, it required twenty or thirty 

 horses fastened together to drag the vehicle out again unless 

 of course something ' gave.' A Me Adam was sorely wanted, 

 but was not forthcoming, and instead of seeking to improve 

 the roads, a vast deal of misplaced ingenuity was expended in 

 fashioning new wheels. There was a controversy as to whether 

 wheels should be cylindrical or conical marvellous as it now 

 seems that the latter eccentricity could ever have been seriously 

 put forward and of many strange contrivances the most ex- 

 traordinary was perhaps devised by a Mr. Robert Bealson in 

 1796. His desire was to prevent the wheels of carriages from 

 making ruts ; and this he proposed to do by fixing a broad 

 and presumably a heavy roller to the bottom of the carriage. 



