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bowl you along to Fairy House or Baldoyle, ay, even to Punchestown, 

 more merrily than any hansom will to Sandown or Epsom ; while the 

 wit and jocularity of the driver are unknown quantities in the Saxon. 



In fact the gemis London cab and 'bus driver is in my opinion about 

 the least amusing person in the world. All the information he seems 

 capable of imparting is on the state of the weather, which, from 

 ocular demonstration, you know all about yourself. At the same 

 time these men are all first-rate whips. 



The jarvey trials at our Dublin Horse Show must convince all that 

 the trappers are first-class and are well driven, while no traps can be 

 turned out more smartly. Let us hope these trials will stimulate the 

 jarveys as a class to general improvement. 



The north of Ireland hack cars are much better appointed and horsed 

 than those of the south, and the drivers know their business much 

 better. Dundalk, I think, "takes the cake" in this respect from all 

 Ireland. In no place have I ever seen so many well turned-out traps 

 for hire as in that rising and prosperous little town. 



Old Ireland is not the only place where we find badly turned-out 

 hackney traps ; every town in England provides them, but as a rule 

 they are all well driven. 



A trap, no matter of what sort, can be turned out smartly at very 

 little expense if a man knows how to go about it, but unless he does 

 and has taste, money will be of very little assistance to him. 



It is easy to recognise what is turned out hy money alone. The 

 horses may be well bred, but they are nearly always long in the back 

 and long in the leg, their action in front is uneven, and very bad 

 behind ; the harness is bound to be brand new, with flowing forehead- 

 band rosettes. Wherever a spare inch is to be found the owner's crest 

 is stuck on, just as if the various pieces were going to be run away with 

 if they were not so stamped. The carriage will be painted in lively 

 colour and picked out in that still more so, while it, too, will be adorned 

 conspicuously with the owner's heraldic bearings. All that costs a lot 

 of money, and, as a rule, the turn-out is not what a gentleman's 

 should be. 



Now a man with taste and knowing what he is about can put together 

 in the acme of style, a trap for himself or a carriage for his wife, at half the 

 money which it has cost the other to make a mess of it. The taste for 

 such, however, must be born in a man ; it may be improved by 

 experience, but assuredly it cannot be bought. 



A trap, whether it be a cab or a car, a cart or a coach, a barouche or 

 a brougham, to look well must have everything to correspond — to fit — to 

 balance. One item out of place spoils the whole. A little man driving 

 a coach spoils the efi'ect, be it in other respects the smartest at a meet 

 of the Four-in-Hand, while a big heavy man upsets the cut of a polo- 

 cart, however good its own equipoise. 



No matter how well shaped they may be, if the horses do not match 

 each other in action, pace, and pull, and don't lift their hind legs, they 



