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to walk. A good many owners and their coaclimen spoil dozens of horses 

 every year through hurrying at starting. The coachman may be late in 

 dressing ; he jumps to his seat, starts his horse at once, and hurries round to 

 the front door ; and when his master drives, he, if of an impatient turn of 

 mind, frequently jumps up and starts at score ; and it only requires a week 

 or two of this sort of thing to turn quiet horses into impetuous starters as 

 soon as they hear the coachman mounting, or feel him gathering up his reins. 



Elsewhere the same writer says : — 



When the Badminton book on Driving was given to the world, no little 

 criticism was expended on the Duke of Beaufort's protest against two- 

 handed driving. A good many people appear to have understood the 

 Duke's directions as though he intended to say that the right hand should 

 never touch the reins, and that the coachman of one horse or of four should 

 drive down Piccadilly with the reins in the left hand alone. It is needless 

 to say that the Duke of Beaufort never intended to say anything so foolish. 

 What he protested against was the practice of drawing the right rein out of 

 the left hand and then keeping the hands several inches apart, and no fault 

 is more common than this. The coachman has then, to all intents and 

 purposes, a rein in each hand, or, as the Irishman said, " a rein in each 

 hand and the whip in the other." In this position the right hand cannot be 

 removed without allowing the right rein to become slack, consequently the 

 horses at once shoot round to the left, should the coachman take his hand off 

 the reins to use his whip. To fiddle away at a horse while the whip hand 

 is at the same time holding a rein is uncoachmanlike in the extreme. The 

 right hand may come to the assistance of the left as often as is required, 

 but in no circumstance should the reins ever be of unequal length in the lef*" 

 hand, and the young coachman cannot be too particular on this point. To 

 use the whip well, said an old coachman, use it as little as possible, and no 

 better advice can be given. To see a horse hit unnecessarily is annoying to a 

 good coachman, and the London coachman's theory of "hit and hold 'em '' 

 is sometimes carried to a foolish extent. A lazy horse must, of course, be 

 kept up to his work, for one that will not go into his bridle can no more 

 be guided with safety through the traffic than a boat can be steered that 

 has no way on her. The whip, besides being a weapon for punishment, when 

 punishment is needed, is also a valuable aid. Horses that are constantly 

 driven along the same road get very cunning at the corners, which they will 

 sometimes cut very fine unless the coachman be on his guard. On such 

 occasions a touch down the shoulder of the inside horse will keep him from 

 coming round too quickly ; or if his companion does not turn quickly 

 enough, a touch of the whip on his outside shoulder will help to send him in 

 the required direction. The novice at driving may also be warned against 

 indulging in that pernicious habit of "chirruping" to his horses. If one 

 is freer than the other, it is the freer one only that takes any notice of the 

 noise, and this is exactly what the coachman does not want — he means to 

 encourage the other. 



Position in driving, though, of course, not everything, is yet a good deal. 

 By adopting a wrong position the coachman loses power. The feet should 

 be kept to the front, but in driving a brake or a coach the toes must not 

 project beyond the footboard. In the old coaching days there was a "fine 



