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CHAPTER XIX. 



MODERN CARRIAGES. 



BY GEORGE N. HOOPER, 



President of the Instit^lte of British Carriage Mamifactiirers ; Member of 

 the Council of the London Chamber of Commerce. 



MUCH has been written of late years on this subject, but as 

 most of the information is strictly technical, and is widely 

 scattered, it is proposed to place before the reader a resume of 

 the subject, mainly from a popular point of view,~and chiefly 

 extending over the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and 

 the period that has witnessed the introduction of travelling by 

 railways and tramways ; for these agencies have been the main 

 factors in the necessary changes that have taken place, by 

 reason of the absolute revolution in land locomotion. 



The design, construction, and weight of carriages must, in 

 almost every case, depend greatly on the state of the roads 

 over which they are to be used ; and the coachmaker, however 

 clever, scientific, practical, or artistic he may be, must inevitably 

 sooner or later adapt his work to the wants of his supporters. 

 In the interest of himself and others, the sooner he realises 

 the fact, the better for all concerned. From the first introduc- 

 tion of carriages into England they had to be made to use on 

 the roads (or no roads) that were available, and from the time 

 of Charles II,, when they became an ordinary article of manu- 

 facture, till the time of George III., when Englishmen woke 

 up to the advantages of good roads, the progress in the art of 

 carriage-building was slow, notwithstanding the efforts of the 



