THE BRAKE. 3 



those that come after, and so on, until the axletree 

 comes down on the ground and is either broken or 

 bent, the shaft horses being generally injured, and 

 sometimes the driver also. 



The brakes used on the Continent are always 

 applied to both wheels on the same axle, and they 

 are not screwed up tight enough to effect an entire 

 stoppage of the wheels, as it is found that wheels 

 with smooth tires skidding on a smooth road do not 

 break momentum as much as when the wheel is 

 almost stopped, and biting, by friction, the blocks 

 of the breaks. These brakes vary in form. For 

 horses driven from a box or dickey they are generally 

 worked by means of a screw with a cranked handle, 

 sometimes by a lever and a toothed rack ; and for 

 such vehicles as are driven by carters that walk 

 alongside their teams, or even a single horse, they 

 are most commonly a lever which has a ring at the 

 top, to which is attached a rope, the other end of 

 which passes through another ring in the shaft, 

 enabling the driver to pull down the lever. He 

 then makes a fast knot, but a slip one, which he 

 can easily pull loose, and thus throw off the action 

 of the brake without stopping his horses to either 

 put it 'off' or 'on.' As being safer, the lever is 

 sometimes placed behind the vehicle. Two-wheeled 

 vehicles, with half a dozen horses, with one of these 

 horses only in the shafts, are thus safely used. 



A horse should not have to work when going 

 down hill ; but, on the contrary, it should be so 

 managed for him that at every descent, however gentle, 



B 2 



