tta: : DRIVING. 



appliances. Bits to stop pullers are almost countless. A few 

 years ago a sailor invented what he called a ' horse subjugator,' 

 for the speedy and effectual checking of runaways. This was 

 simply a modified garotte. In lieu of rings for bearing-reins 

 were a couple of blocks through which was rove a line which 

 came to the hand of the driver. Should the horse happen to 

 bolt, the coachman had simply to take up his cord rein, give it 

 a lusty jerk, and hang on with all his might until the horse was 

 sufficiently near strangulation to stop. Then there was the 

 electric anti-crib-biting manger, which gave a galvanic shock to 

 the horse on his attempting to seize the manger with his teeth. 

 In short, an interesting book might be written concerning inven- 

 tions in relation to horses and stables, and the failures which 

 have waited upon a vast expenditure of time and money. 



BREAKS. 



Breaks are looked upon by the old school of coachmen as 

 innovations, not always of the very best kind ; they (the old 

 coachmen) were accustomed to keep time with heavy loads, 

 through all weathers, having only the assistance of a good 

 skid or slipper and an active guard, and they rather scorn 

 this extraneous assistance. There is no doubt, however, that 

 the patent breaks are very frequently of immense use ; they 

 have prevented scores of accidents by helping to stop horses 

 when they meant going, or when they began any other of 

 their little games ; they have saved many a poor wheeler's 

 legs going down hills, and have oftentimes been of untold 

 service to a coachman whose 'arms were beginning to go.' 

 Yet some at least of the 'old school' decline to recognise the 

 merits of the comparatively new invention. For example, Mr. 

 Birch Reynardson, the author of ' Down the Road,' writes, ' I 

 have seen a coachman pull up his horses at the famed White 

 Horse Cellar with his reins in two hands, and then put on his 

 " patent break," I suppose to stop his coach, lest his horses 

 should move on, which in olden days they were not much 



