4 HORSES AND ROADS. 



he should have some respite from work, as a sort of 

 set-off against the hard labour he endures when 

 drawing a load up hill. There are very many 

 reasons for this besides this most apparent one. 

 Even with our four-wheeled heavy trucks and wag- 

 gons, the chain or skid is not always put on for 

 every slight descent, as the brake is on the Con- 

 tinent. The approaches to London Bridge, for 

 instance, are bad — in certain weathers especially so — 

 but frequently skids are not applied on account of 

 the necessity for stopping to put them on and off — 

 which stoppage the traffic does not always admit 

 of — and so the poor horses pay in a direct way, and 

 their careless masters in rather a more indirect one. 

 Unfortunately they only pay out of their pockets, 

 whilst the horse pays with his frame. 



It is astonishing that the railway companies, 

 above all others, being such large horse owners as 

 they are, have not paid attention to brakes on their 

 street vans, because, as they employ the best mecha- 

 nical skill attainable for their other rolling stock, 

 they might have easily appointed an engineer 

 to see what he could do for their horse trucks ; but it 

 looks as if no engineer ever went near the horses or 

 trucks, or even noticed them in the streets, where 

 mechanical skill ought to see that there was room 

 for improvement. It appears as if this branch were 

 left entirely to the surveillance of ignorant, preju- 

 diced drivers, horsekeepers, and farriers, who have 

 no emulation, but are quite satisfied to go on like 

 their predecessors. It must be understood that 



