Part 12

“constructed principally of a dull black leather, thickly studded, by way of ornament, with black-headed nails tracing out the panels; in the upper tier of which were four oval windows, with heavy red wooden frames, and green stuff or leathern curtains. Upon the doors, also, there appeared but little of that gay blazonry which shines upon the numerous quadrigae of the present time; but there were displayed in large characters the names of the places whence the coach started, and whither it went, stated in quaint and ancient language. The vehicles themselves varied in shape. Sometimes they were like a distiller’s vat; sometimes flattened, and hung equally balanced between the immense front and back springs; in other instances they resembled a violincello case, which was past all comparison the most fashionable form; and they hung in a more genteel posture, namely, inclining on to the back springs, and giving to those who sat within the appearance of a stiff Guy Faux, uneasily seated. The roofs of the coaches, in most cases, rose into a swelling curve, which was sometimes surrounded by a high iron guard.... The coachman, and the guard, who always held his carabine ready bent, or, as we now say, cocked upon his knee, then sat together; not as at present, upon a close, compact varnished seat, but over a very long and narrow boot, which passed under a large spreading hammer cloth, hanging down on all sides, and finished with a flowing and most luxurious fringe. Behind the coach was the immense basket stretching far and wide beyond the body, to which it was attached by long iron bars or supports passing beneath it; though even these seemed scarcely equal to the enormous weight with which they were frequently loaded. They were, however, never very great favourites, although their difference of price caused them frequently to be well filled, for, as an ancient Teague observed, ‘they got in so long after the coach, that they ought to set out a day sooner, to be there at the same time. Arrah!’ continued he, ‘can’t they give it the two hind wheels, and let it go first?’ The wheels of these old carriages were large, massive, ill-formed, and usually of a red colour; and the three horses that were affixed to the whole machine—the foremost of which was helped onward by carrying a huge long-legged elf of a postillion, dressed in a cocked hat, with a large green and gold riding coat—were all so far parted from it by the great length of their traces, that it was with no little difficulty that the poor animals dragged their unwieldy burthen along the road. It groaned, and creaked, and lumbered, at every fresh tug which they gave it, as a ship, rocking or beating up, through a heavy sea, strains all her timbers with a low-moaning sound, as she drives over the contending waves.”

No wonder, said Scott, that at this time people invariably made their wills before setting out on a journey of any length. The dangers were manifold and very real.

In France the stage-coaches, or _diligences_, were very similar “with large bodies, having three small windows on each side and hung by leather braces on long perch carriages, with high hind wheels and low front wheels, without any driving box and fitted with large baskets, back and front for passengers or luggage; they were drawn by five horses and driven by a postillion on the off wheeler instead of the near wheeler as in England.” One, at any rate, of these diligences had springs of a kind. Another public coach in France at this time was the _gondola_, holding ten or twelve passengers inside, these sitting sideways with one at each end, a second attempt at a kind of omnibus. Still another public vehicle popular about this time in Paris was the _coucou_. Of this weird machine Ramée says:—

“Figure a box, yellow, green, brown, red, or sky blue, open in front, having two foul benches which had formerly been stuffed, on which were placed six unfortunate voyagers. In the sides it had, right and left, one or two square openings, to give air during the day or in summer. While the interior was sufficiently open to the world, there was built an apron in front, framed in woodwork and covered with sheet iron. Upon this apron was thrown a third bench, on which were seated the driver of the _coucou_ and two passengers who were termed _lapins_ (rabbits).”

The _coucou_ was regularly to be seen lumbering painfully along with its ten or a dozen passengers, its snail’s pace giving it the ironical name of _vigoureux_. The poorer people almost exclusively used the _coucou_, although a smart woman with her pet dog, or a gentleman who had been unable to find a place in the more aristocratic _gondola_, were occasionally to be seen in its interior sandwiched in between two peasants.

In Spain the _coucou_ found an equivalent in the _galera_, which was provided with the ubiquitous basket—a low waggon it was, with its sides formed of a number of wooden spokes at a considerable distance from each other, and having no bottom save a strip of spartum on which the trunks and packages were heaped. In Spain there were several types of cart, two-or four-wheeled, which likewise plied for passenger hire. One of these, called a _correo real_, seems to have travelled at rather a greater pace, though with even less comfort to the unfortunate passengers than the others. A century later this _correo real_ was described by Théophile Gautier, who speaks of it as “an antediluvian vehicle, of which the model could only be found in the fossil remains of Spain, immense bell-shaped wheels, with very thin spokes, considerably behind the frame, which had been painted red somewhere about the time of Isabella the Catholic; an extravagant body full of all sorts of crooked windows, and lined in the inside with small satin cushions, which may at some period have been rose-coloured, and the whole decorated with a kind of silk that was once probably of various colours.”

In 1743 the system of travelling post, which so long before as 1664 had been common in France, was introduced into England by one John Trull, an artillery officer, who obtained a patent for letting carriages for hire across country. These were the _post-chaises_, of which the first were two-wheeled with the door in front—in this respect being similar to the French _chaises de poste_, from which the idea was taken. Trull’s scheme, however, though successful in itself does not seem to have brought money to its inventor, who thirty years later died in the King’s Bench. The door of these first post-chaises “was hinged at the bottom and fell forward on to a small dasher like a gentleman’s cabriolet,” and there was a window on either side. “It was hung upon two very lofty wheels,” says Thrupp, “and long shafts for one horse, and the body was rather in front of the wheels, so that the weight on the horse’s back must have been considerable. It was suspended at first upon leather braces only, but later upon two upright or whip springs behind, and two elbow springs in front from the body to the cross-bar, which joined the shafts and carried the step.” Soon, however, these post-chaises were built with four wheels, and resembled the ordinary private chariots of the day, though without their lavish ornamentation. In less than ten years, however, a larger body was given to them, so that they came to resemble the coach rather than the smaller and slimmer chariots, while the coachman’s box was made very much higher.

The post-chaise became extraordinarily popular. The literature of the mid-eighteenth century is full of references to it. All kinds of adventures happened to people in post-chaises. They were seen in every part of the country, they could be hired here, there, and everywhere. Dr. Johnson was only one amongst thousands who loved them. “If I had no duties,” he records, “and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.” “I have tried almost every mode of travelling since I saw you,” wrote Wilkes to his daughter, “in a coach, chaise, waggon, boat, _treckscuyt_, _traineau_, sledge, etc. I know none so agreeable as my English post-chaise.”

One thinks naturally of Laurence Sterne. Both in _Tristram Shandy_ and in the _Sentimental Journey_ he has much to say of the post-chaises. “Something is always wrong,” he is grumbling somewhere, “in a French post-chaise, upon first setting out.... A French postillion has always to alight before he has got three hundred yards out of town.” And then, of course, there is that never-to-be-forgotten _désobligeante_ which he purchased from M. Dessein at Calais.[40]

“There being no travelling in France and Italy,” he recounts, “without a chaise—and nature generally prompting us to the thing we are fittest for, I walk’d out into the coach-yard to buy or hire something of that kind to my purpose: an old _Désobligeante_, in the furthest corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight, so I instantly got into it.”

And there it was in that queer little carriage which would hold but one person, that Sterne wrote his famous Preface about Travellers, “though it would have been better,” he observed, when interrupted, “in a _Vis-à-Vis_.” The particular _désobligeante_ seems to have proved satisfactory, but for the species Sterne could not find much praise.

“In Monsieur Dessein’s coach-yard,” he says, “I saw another old tatter’d _désobligeante_; and notwithstanding it was the exact picture of that which had hit my fancy so much in the coach-yard but an hour before, the very sight of it stirr’d up a disagreeable sensation within me now; and I thought ’twas a churlish beast into whose heart the idea could first enter, to construct such a machine; nor had I much more charity for the man who could think of using it.”

It was certainly not a very sociable carriage, but then neither was the sedan: both were very useful.

I may conclude this chapter by drawing attention to the tax upon coaches which was levied at the beginning of 1747. From the fuss that was made when such a bill was first introduced—it was temporarily abandoned—you might imagine that one of the most treasured articles of the Constitution was about to be swept away.

“It is impossible to express,” wrote a country clergyman to his bishop in a letter which deserves quotation as affording an insight into the lesser equipages used in the country at this time, “the various impressions your lordship’s letter, relating to the tax upon coaches, made here; as people imagined it a jest, or serious: As most inclined to the former, it would be too tedious to trouble you with the witticisms and conundrums it occasioned. B. said the Church was in danger; C. observed it would be like the gospel-feast inverted, that the maimed and lame being the only guests admitted there, would be the only ones excluded here.... As we have now no reason to doubt such a tax being really intended, give me leave to represent to you our thoughts of it here. My living, your Lordship knows, is under £70 _per Ann._, yet out of this, some years since, I made a shift to lay out six pounds on an old chariot, which, with the help of my ploughman and a pair of cart-horses, has drawn my wife, etc., half a mile to church, who, for the future, must go in a cart, or stay at home. Repairs, etc., have cost me, _communibus annis_, for the eleven years I have had it, about 7s. so the interest of my money, at 5 _per cent_, on the £6 and 7s. in repairs, is 13s. _per Ann._, which with tax on this my pompous luxury, will be increased to £4 13s. _per Ann._, almost the prime cost of setting up my Equipage. I am afraid this is not my case singly, but will be found pretty nearly so, of most of the small clergy in England. Among the laity we have several gentlemen farmers, who manage, in some degree, with the same frugality, and who, for the same reasons, are prepared to part with, or continue them according to the fate of this bill; insomuch, that I can compute that in sixteen parishes I have in my eye three times that number of coaches will be disposed of, for we look on the same sum, which is but a trifling duty on grand equipages, to amount to a prohibition on ours, which resembles them no more than a ragged coat does an embroidered suit. I shall not dwell on the quantity of glass (not to mention leather, etc.), this will bring to market, nor the future consumption of these commodities it will prevent.... To me I own it looks a little like the son eating the father.... How many single gentlemen,” he goes on to ask, after pointing out that it is the poorer married men who will suffer most, “from 2, 3, to 800_l._ a year, and more, have no coaches, yet keep a stable of hunters (the worst of which would purchase my equipage) and a pack of hounds, whom this duty will not affect?”

But the bill was passed, and so we must suppose that our clergyman and his farmer friends were forced to walk to church.

Some verses printed in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ at this time may also be quoted as reflecting the general opinion about the bill.

“Before Bohemian _Anne_ was Queen, Astride their steeds were ladies seen; And good Queen _Bess_ to _Paul’s_, I wot, Full oft astride has jogg’d on trot: Beaus then could foot it thro’ all weather, And nothing fear’d but wear of leather. But now (so luxury decrees) The polish’d age rolls on at ease: Coach, chariot, chaise, berlin, landau[41] (Machines the ancients never saw) Indulge our gentle sons of war, Who ne’er will mount triumphant car. The carriage marks the peer’s degree, And almost tells the doctor’s fee; Bears ev’ry thriving child of art; Ev’n thieves to _Tyburn_ claim their cart. O cruel law! replete with pain, That makes us use our feet again; Or, half our pair oblig’d to lack, Bids us bestride the other’s back. A shilling stage would suit with many, Who cannot reach an eighteen penny. _Rock_ must enhance the price of pills, Or drive again—one pair of wheels. The graduate too will be to seek, Who mounts his chariot twice a week: For if the hackneymen should grumble, I fear our Phaeton[41] must tumble. O cruel law! to raise the fare Of Christmas turkey, chine, and hare; The vails or wages to retrench Of country serving-man or wench, Who twice a year ride up and down, Betwixt their native place and town. O cruel tax! who must not say, Which only those who will—need pay?”

From this bill, those who used the one-horse chaises certainly suffered. _Rusticus_ thereupon offered the following advice to his fellow-sufferers at the time of the next General Election:—

“Ye who late loll’d in easy _chaise and one_, And now must walk, or ride _Old Grey_ or _Dun_, Enquire when wheels were tax’d (to mend your fate) What patriots, _spokesmen_ were in the debate. And get this act, a promise to revoke, Or _put_ into each _spokesman’s_ wheel a _spoke_.”

_Chapter the Seventh_

_THE WAR OF THE WHEELS: WITH SOME CURIOSITIES, REGAL AND OTHERWISE_

“The morning came, the chaise was brought, But yet was not allowed To drive up to the door, lest all Should say that she was proud.

“So three doors off the chaise was stayed, When they did all get in, Six precious souls, and all agog To dash through thick and thin.”

_John Gilpin._

“In my journey to _London_,” wrote an indignant correspondent to the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, early in 1747, “I travell’d from _Harborough_ to _Northampton_, and well was it that I was in a light Berlin, and six good horses, or I might have overlaid in that turnpike road. But for fear of life and limb, I walk’d several miles on foot, met 20 waggons tearing their goods to pieces, and the drivers cursing and swearing for being robb’d on the highway by a turnpike, screen’d under an Act of Parliament.” These turnpikes, or toll-gates, had been but lately established in England for the preservation of the roads. That they did very much immediate good, however, may be doubted. A few years afterwards an English traveller was grumbling at the superiority of the French roads over our own. “Nothing piques me more,” he wrote in an amusingly satirical passage, “than that a trumpery despotic Government, like France, should have enchanting roads from the capital to each remote part.” He seems to have taken trouble to find out the cause for so lamentable a difference, and for this purpose consulted “the most solemn looking waggoner on the road.”

“This prov’d to be _Jack Whipcord_ of _Blandford_. Jack’s answer was ‘That roads had but one object, namely, waggon-driving. That he requir’d but five feet wedth in a line [which he resolved never to quit], and all the rest might go to the d—— l. That the gentry ought to stay at home and be d—— and not run gossiping up and down the country. But, added _Jack_, we will soon cure them, for my brethren since the late act have made a vow to run our wheels in the coach quarter. We tack on a sixth or seventh horse at pleasure. What a plague would they send us to the galleys for this, as papishes do in beyond-sea countries.’”

The Act to which Jack referred had been passed in 1745. It followed upon the fact that while coaches, generally speaking, were in process of becoming lighter, carts and waggons were becoming much heavier. And so it had been proposed that no waggon should be drawn by more than four horses, no matter whether these were “in length, pairs or sideways,” and no cart should have more than three. Every horse above these numbers could be forfeited together “with all geers, bridles, halters, harness and accoutrements.” There were to be collectors of tolls, and gentlemen’s private carriages and purely agricultural waggons were to be exempt. Also certain roads, presumably those but lately laid down according to the best ideas of the time, were to be treated as outside the scope of the Act. And if the wheels of these heavy waggons and carts possessed “wheels bound with streaks or tire of the breadth of eight inches at least when worn and not set on with rose-headed nails,” they might likewise be exempt.

This Bill gave rise to a curious wordy warfare, which was carried on for some years, and may be said to have interested people in the general questions of wheeled traffic right on until the time when McAdam’s schemes altogether altered general opinion. This war, of course, hardly touched private carriages, but was waged in so many quarters and with such various weapons that it deserves some mention in any account of carriages.

It was immediately “objected by multitudes” that the Bill of 1745 would “greatly enhance the price of carriage of goods,” but its apologists argued that even if it did, better-designed carriages and carts would be built, so that the roads would improve, and the price of cartage ultimately go down. “It is urged,” they said, “that light carts or waggons may be used, and the horses draw double, as in the rabbet waggons of Norfolk, which improves the road and contributes to expedition.”

At an early stage in this war two factions arose. On the one hand you had coachbuilders and others filling the newspapers and publishing tracts, some very serious, some extraordinarily mathematical, others merely facetious, to prove that the roads could be preserved only by using very broad wheels—some, indeed, advocated rollers, which, as we shall see, were actually tried—and on the other hand you had people filling more columns, and very dull columns some of them were, to show that a low broad wheel was the one thing which no really satisfactory vehicle could possibly possess. These were the apologists for the lighter waggons with large but slender wheels. Decrease your weight, said they, and never mind about the wheels; it is the great weight that ruins the roads. How can you decrease the weight, asked the broad-wheel faction, without increasing the cost of carriage? Increase the cost of carriage for a while, was the reply, and see what happens to the roads.

For a time, however, the broad-wheel faction held the advantage, and when further legislation was made in 1754, it was entirely in their favour.

“It is enacted that after next Michaelmas, no wheel carriage of burthen (except it be drawn by oxen only, or if by horses with less than five, if a four-wheeled carriage, with less than four) shall travel any turnpike road, unless the fellies of the wheels shall be nine inches from side to side under a penalty of £5, or the forfeiture of one of the horses, with all his accoutrements, to the sole use of the person who shall seize them.”

So soon as such proposals had become law, it was asked with some pertinence: where were these huge wheels to come from? What of the heavy expenses that would fall on the farmers? The parrot cry, “Your wheels will cost you more,” was hinted at, if not expressed in so modern a way. Arguments were put forward to show that the correct height for wheels was anything between two and eight feet, and the correct breadth from three to eighteen inches. And the disputes became tinged with personalities. But the net result seems to have been that most people fought shy of the very wide wheels, and were content to use less horses.

The war dragged on, and particular inventions to cope with the difficulty began to appear. A new tire was widely advertised. An enthusiastic inventor occupied two or three pages of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ with details of his particular waggon, which had the front and back wheels of very different sizes, but what exactly its advantages might be were not very clear to any one but himself. Then on the 14th of April, 1764, one Daniel Bourn of Leominster produced a waggon on small rollers. Though it was unsuccessful, it led the way to further experiments, and as will be seen from the contemporary account immediately below, contained at any rate one novel feature which was subsequently widely adopted not only in waggons and carts, but also in four-wheeled carriages of every description.

“Mr. Bourn’s new machine for travelling the roads was tried against a common broad-wheeled waggon, but did not answer, the common waggon going as well with four horses, as the new one with eight. The weight carried was five ton besides the carriage. The wheels of this waggon are 14 inches; the fore wheels go within the hind wheels, and are so shallow as to turn under the bed of the waggon. The _Leominster_ stage waggon has these wheels.”