394 DRIVING. 



with the government of the country through the votes they 

 exercise at elections. 



The result of the technical classes has been to turn out 

 some hundreds of more or less skilful carnage draughtsmen, 

 who, being able to make full-sized working drawings of car- 

 riages, greatly facilitate the production of more elegant and 

 better proportioned vehicles, and are likely in the near future 

 to exert a favourable influence on the whole trade. But in- 

 stead of passing the apprentices and young workmen through 

 the classes by hundreds, it is to be hoped that at no distant 

 time they will be passed through by thousands, to the benefit 

 of themselves and their country. Some have been instructed 

 in the art of perspective drawing, and a few can produce 

 drawings of carriages in perspective with facility. Already 

 lithographers and printers are able to supply illustrations of 

 carriages in perspective very fairly, an accomplishment that 

 an older generation of coachmakers said was not only difficult 

 but impossible, and never would be done. It has, however, 

 been done in our time, notwithstanding. 



Associations of carriage-builders have existed in England, 

 France, and in the United States for some years, the American 

 being the most active and enterprising, holding its meetings in 

 a different town each year, and numbering about four hundred 

 members at each meeting, some travelling one or two thousaud 

 miles to be present and take part in the proceedings, for mutual 

 aid, support, and protection. The French one consists solely 

 of Paris coachmakers. It has exercised a great .influence in 

 the development of the carriage industry in France, and has 

 been carried on with very considerable skill, intelligence, and 

 patriotism. 



The London Coachmakers' Company holds its charter of 

 incorporation from King Charles II., and in its day has done 

 good service to the industry it was founded to foster and en- 

 courage. From a state of almost entire torpor about twenty 

 years ago, it has been urged and pushed on to a condition of 

 greater influence and usefulness ; but its pace was too slow for 



