LIGHTER CARRIAGE AND SADDLE HORSES. 599 



Within the last sixty or seventy years, a surprising revolu- 

 tion has taken place in the means of communication through- 

 out the British Islands, by the extension and improved con- 

 struction of roads. The increase of highways has accom- 

 panied the general improvement of the country ; and during 

 the latter part of the period in question, the application of a 

 few simple principles has rendered the roads better fitted for 

 all kinds of wheel-carriages. From these two causes, the 

 means of internal intercourse have been prodigiously in- 

 creased, and the modes and rate of travelling greatly changed. 

 The method of conveying letters by public coaches, begun in 

 1784, was immediately followed by a more expeditious rate 

 of travelling, and by an increase in the number of public 

 carriages throughout the country. The rate of travelling, 

 from being four or five miles in the hour, increased to six, 

 seven, and eight, and now at length to ten, and even twelve.* 

 The effect of this change in the rate of travelling has pro- 

 duced a corresponding one in the kinds of horses employed. 

 The coarse and heavy horses of former times were little fitted 

 for this increased exertion, and hence the substitution became 

 necessary of a lighter class with superior breeding. The de- 

 mand, too, for horses thus employed has been large and con- 

 stant, not only from the numbers employed, but from the 

 waste of the animals. Although a class of horses better 

 suited for the service than the old has been employed, and 

 the stages have been greatly shortened, the burdens could 

 not be reduced in proportion to the increase of speed ; and 

 hence the exaction on the muscular powers of the animals 

 has been greatly augmented. We may please ourselves with 



* From twenty to thirty miles a-day, at the rate of four miles an hour, was 

 the usual work of the few public coaches in England so late as the accession of 

 George III. At that period, there was but one public coach from London to 

 Edinburgh, which started once a-month, and occupied nearly three weeks in 

 the journey. The other heavy coaches which set off from London performed in 

 like manner slow journeys, in the manner of waggons, to distant parts of the 

 kingdom. Now, more than 1000 well-equipped carriages, with relays of horses 

 at short stages, start from the same great city every day, besides several hun- 

 dreds which proceed to the towns, villages, and populous places around. 



