44 DRIVING. 



Tilbury, both named after their designers, the former having 

 been built about 1815 for the Hon. Fitzroy Stanhope. The 

 other, with seven springs instead of four, was lighter looking, 

 though in reality heavier. The Tilbury was driven with a 

 horse of different breed from that which was employed for a 

 cabriolet. He was smaller, had a less showy action, the groom 

 invariably sat on the left side of his master, and always with 

 his arms crossed on his breast waiting orders. The technical 

 reasons why the Tilbury, in spite of its appearance, was, in 

 reality, heavier than the Stanhope need not be given here, but 

 as a matter of fact it was, with the exception of the cabriolet, 

 the heaviest two-wheeled pleasure carriage constructed. The 

 Dennett, said to have been named ' after the then Miss Dennett 

 whose elegant stage dancing was so much in vogue about the 

 time the vehicle was first used,' is another similar carriage, and 

 so is the gig, described by Mr. Adams as 'the lightest one- 

 horse vehicle used in England.' It is simply an open-railed 

 chair fixed on the shafts and supported on two side springs, the 

 hinder ends of which were connected to the loop iron by 

 leather traces to give more freedom to the motion. Hence 

 comes the early form of dog-cart. Gigs, we are informed, 

 were occasionally 'used for shooting, when the lockers were 

 made with Venetian blinds to carry the dogs, and then it 

 became a dog-cart.' The type has altered in several respects, 

 and dog-carts are now of various kinds which are too familiar 

 to need classification. 



While on the subject of two-wheeled carriages, it may be 

 well to include the popular hansom. The inventor was a 

 Mr. Joseph Hansom, a Leicestershire architect. In 1834 he 

 obtained a patent for his new and very original form of 

 cabriolet. 1 Omitting technicalities, the points of the invention 

 were that the body of the hansom was much nearer the ground 

 than had hitherto been conveniently practicable in any carriage, 



1 Fifty years ago the cab was a sort of cabriolet, with a fixed hard head, 

 and the driver sat outside on the off side on a little perch. There were no four- 

 wheel cabs, the only other vehicle ' on the rank ' being the pair-horse hackney 

 coach. 



