MODERN CARRIAGES. 361 



two and four wheel cars, well horsed and organised. Many of 

 the latter were drawn by four horses driven from a high seat, 

 and enabled travellers to see the country to advantage. They 

 were all, however, open carriages, and exposed the travellers to 

 the full influence of the rainy climate of the Emerald Isle. 



American ingenuity has for many years been directed to 

 carriages, and with the object of precisely adapting means to 

 ends, but with some remarkable contrasts in design, construc- 

 tion, proportion, and finish. 



Many Englishmen have from time to time seen the light 

 spider phaetons that have been brought over to England ; but 

 in 1887, during the American Exhibition at West Kensington, 

 people had the opportunity for the first time of seeing a genuine 

 American stage coach. This was the * Deadwood ' coach, 

 daily and nightly attacked by Colonel Cody's party of wild 

 Indians in the ' Buffalo Bill ' performances. 



It may surprise our readers to hear that similar coaches may 

 still be seen in New York, where they are used for journeys 

 outside the city, to places not served by railways. They are 

 neither like an English stage coach, French diligence, nor German 

 schnellwagen. They have no springs, but the coach bodies are 

 suspended on perch carriages with leather braces of heavy make 

 and proportions, and seem to answer the purpose intended. 



The reason of the very heavy stage-coach and very light 

 ordinary road vehicles is consistent, strange as the assertion 

 may appear at first sight. It happened that at a particular 

 period of development in the United States railways and tram- 

 ways were made in advance of ordinary roads, and it was never 

 found to be worth the expense of developing the latter, as had 

 been done in Europe, for twenty or thirty years before railways 

 became general. This will probably happen in all new countries 

 and colonies, where facility of communication is extended on 

 the system that has found favour in America. It therefore 

 follows that carriages &c. drawn by horses would always (or 

 nearly always) be used on rough and ill-kept roads, and would 

 have to be made to suit the conditions available for traffic. 



