The Roadster 1 71 



wagon to be used for fast driving, it will be found 

 that the modern very light vehicles of from fifty to 

 eighty pounds present few advantages from their 

 excessive lightness. They are, of course, perfectly 

 trustworthy and thoroug-'hly reliable so far as safety 

 goes, but naturally they are almost springless, and 

 they are most uncomfortable for any road but the 

 perfectly surfaced speedways or the race-tracks. 

 They carry no backs to the seats, they barely accom- 

 modate one man, and they are not " road-wagons " 

 at all, but merely machines masquerading under that 

 name, designed for purposes of covering a short dis- 

 tance at high speed. They have been recognised in 

 one or two of our horse shows as road-wagons, but 

 that does not affect the point at issue. No specially 

 good results accrue from their slender construction, 

 for it is a fact that the average road-horse needs a 

 certain amount of weight to steady him at speed. 

 Rough-gaited horses also generally go much 

 smoother when drawing a four-wheeled vehicle 

 that has some weight to it, and the genuine road- 

 wagon of the usual type, carrying a top and hold- 



