Part 16

Mr. Stratton thinks that the Indians of North America had rude litters at an early date. The Incas of Peru certainly possessed magnificently decorated sedans or palanquins, in which they progressed through their kingdom. It was not, however, until the seventeenth century that wheeled carriages appeared in America. Sir Thomas Browne quotes from an English traveller’s book, which states that by the middle of this century there were at least twenty thousand coaches in Mexico, and possibly this was true. But into North America carriages filtered but slowly. There had been coaches in Boston so early as 1669, and in Connecticut in 1685. William Penn, writing to Logan in 1700, bids his servants have the coach ready. The calash was also known at that time, but being “clumsy” was less popular than the French cabriolet or gig, which had been brought over by the Huguenots, and rapidly transformed into the well-known _one-horse shay_, which in its turn was supplanted by the more comfortable and certainly more distinctive _buggy_.

Bennet, travelling in America in 1740, saw many carriages in Boston.

“There are several families,” he records, “in Boston that keep a coach and a pair of horses, and some few drive with four horses; but for chaises and saddle-horses, considering the bulk of the place, they outdo London. They have some nimble, lively horses for the coach, but not any of that beautiful black breed so common in London.... The country carts and wagons are generally drawn by oxen, from two to six, according to the distance, or the burden they are laden with.”

A Boston advertisement of 1743 mentions “a very handsome chariot, fit for town or country, lined with red coffy, handsomely carved and painted, with a whole front glass, the seat-cloth embroidered with silver, and a silk fringe round the seat.” This was offered for sale by John Lucas, a local coachbuilder, and had most probably been built by him.

At this time several stage-coaches were running, and the _shay_ was being used by even the poorer folk. A Philadelphian advertisement of 1746 speaks of “two very handsome chairs, with very good geers,” and at this time, too, the Italian chairs and curricles were also popular. They were generally driven tandem.

Even more distinctive than the shay, however, was the _coachee_, which is described by Isaac Weld in his travels (1795):—

“The body of it is rather longer than a coach, but of the same shape. In the front it is left quite open down to the bottom, and the driver sits on a bench under the roof of the carriage. There are two seats in it for passengers, who sit in it with their faces to the horses. The roof is supported by small props, which are placed at the corners. On each side of the door, above the panels, it is quite open; and, to guard against bad weather, there are curtains which let down from the roof and fasten to buttons on the outside. The light wagons are in the same construction,” he adds, “and are calculated to hold from four to twelve people. The wagon has no doors, but the passengers scramble in the best way they can over the seat of the driver. The wagons are used universally for stage-coaches.”

The American stage-waggon is also described by another Englishman, Thomas Twining, who visited the country in 1795.

“The vehicle,” says he, “was a long car with four benches. Three of these in the interior held nine passengers. A tenth passenger was seated by the side of the driver on the front bench. A light roof was supported by eight slender pillars, four on each side. Three large leather curtains suspended to the roof, one at each side and the third behind, were rolled up or lowered at the pleasure of the passengers. There was no place nor space for luggage, each person being expected to stow his things as he could under his seat or legs. The entrance was in front over the driver’s bench. Of course, the three passengers on the back seat were obliged to crawl across all the other benches to get to their places. There were no backs to the benches to support and relieve us during a rough and fatiguing journey over a newly and ill-made road.”

The body of these public carriages was high, and the back wheels were larger than those in front. A somewhat similar conveyance is still used to-day in some of the northern districts of Australia.

The commonest vehicle in Russia at this time seems to have been the _taranta_, which is described as “a travelling carriage whose body resembles a flat-bottomed punt.” The natives apparently considered that it was a very comfortable carriage, and it certainly could hold a great quantity of luggage and wraps, but the foreigners using it did not always express a similar opinion.

“We travelled certainly with speed,” says Madame Pfeiffer of the _taranta_, in her _Journey round the World_, “but any one who had not a body of iron, or a well-cushioned spring carriage, would not find this very agreeable, and would certainly prefer to travel slower upon these uneven, bad roads. The post-carriage, for which ten kopecs a station is paid, is nothing more than a very short wooden open car, with four wheels. Instead of a seat some hay is laid in it, and there is just room enough for a small chest, upon which the driver sits. These cars naturally jolt very much. There is nothing to take hold of, and it requires some care to avoid being thrown out. The draught consists of three horses abreast; over the centre one a wooden arch is fixed, on which hang two or three bells, which continually made a most disagreeable noise. In addition to this, imagine the rattling of the carriage, and the shouting of the driver, who is always in great activity urging on the poor animals, and it may be easily understood that, as is often the case, the carriage arrives at the station without the travellers.”

Even less “genteel” than the _taranta_ was the _kibitka_, “a common posting-waggon,” according to Stratton, “consisting of a huge frame of unhewn sticks, fastened firmly upon two axles, the fore part of it having underneath a solid block of hard wood, on which it rests, elevating it so as to allow the wheels to play.”

Other Russian carriages were the _teleka_, the _telashka_, and the better-known _droitzschka_, or, as it was known in England, _drosky_—an improvement originally of the sledge by the mere addition of springs and wheels. In Norway the _carriole_ was very similar to the original French gig, and like the _char-à-cote_ of Switzerland, was long and narrow and peculiarly adapted for mountainous countries. But in nearly all the colder regions, wheel carriages were scarcely used at all, the snow making some kind of sledge far more convenient. Captain King, in his _Journey across Asia_, gives a detailed description of the sledges then in use (1784) in Kamtschatka.

“The body of the sledge,” he says, “is about four feet and a half long and a foot wide, made in the form of a crescent, of light, tough wood, strongly bound together with wicker-work; which in those belonging to the better sort of people is elegantly stained of a red and blue colour, and the seat covered with bear-skins, or other furs. It is supported by four legs, about two feet high, which rest on two long flat pieces of wood, extending a foot at each end beyond the body of the sledge. These are turned up before, in the manner of a skate, and shod with the bone of some sea animal. The fore part of the carriage is ornamented with thongs of leather and tassels of coloured cloth; and from the cross-bar, to which the harness is joined, are hung links of iron, or small bells, the jingling of which they conceive to be encouraging to the dogs. They are seldom used to carry more than one person at a time, who sits aside [? astride], resting his feet on the lower part of the sledge, and carrying his provisions and other necessaries, wrapped up in a bundle, behind him. The dogs are usually five in number, yoked two and two, with a leader. The reins not being fastened to the head of the dogs, but to the collar, have little power over them, and are therefore generally hung upon the sledge, whilst the driver depends entirely on their obedience to his voice for the direction of them.... The driver is also provided with a crooked stick, which answers the purpose both of whip and reins; as by striking it into the snow, he is enabled to moderate the speed of the dogs, or even to stop them entirely.... Our party consisted in all of ten sledges. That in which Captain Gore was carried, was made of two lashed together, and abundantly provided with furs and bear-skins; it had ten dogs, yoked four abreast, as had also some of those that were heavy laden with baggage.”

In Europe and North America these sledges were also used, and could be highly ornamented. Two of this kind, narrow and low, may be seen at South Kensington. They are mentioned by several travellers. Edward Wright, visiting Amsterdam in 1719, had seen “several coach-bodies drawn upon sledges,” and explained that the inhabitants did not use wheels “to avoid shaking the foundations of the houses.” Holcroft, too, at the end of the century, journeyed from Hamburg to Paris by way of Holland, and did not hide his surprise at the appearance of these sledges.

“And pray, sir, what are you?” he asks in the Shandean manner. “We never saw so staring or so strange an animal before.”

“’Tis a tropical bird, on a mast.”

“Can it be? A coach without wheels? Yes: dragged on a sledge by a single horse, and a lady in it.”

Holcroft also noticed in Amsterdam what he called “a travelling haberdasher’s shop with wheels, rolled through the streets by its master.” This appears to have been some sort of light travelling booth. In Paris itself, he records, “there is scarcely a street which is not so narrow as to be extremely dangerous to foot passengers. They are rendered more so at some times by the extreme carelessness, and at others by the brutal insolence, of coachmen. There is no foot pavement; and the only guard against carriages is formed by large stones placed at certain distances, but close to the wall.” In Germany, too, he found little to please him, and warns Englishmen against bringing English-built carriages into that country, for of a surety they will be “broken up.” England, indeed, about this time, seems to have been by far the most progressive country as regards locomotion.

_Chapter the Ninth_

_INVENTIONS GALORE_

“Prime of Life to ‘go it!’ where’s the place like London: Four-in-hand to-day, tomorrow you may be undone: Where the Duke and the ’prentice they dress much the same: You cannot tell the difference, excepting by the name! Then push along with four-in-hand, while others drive at random, In buggy, gig or dog-cart, in curricle or tandem.”

EGAN, _Life in London_.

If William Felton’s book shows the great improvements that had taken place in English carriage-building during the latter half of the eighteenth century, William Bridges Adams’s _English Pleasure Carriages_, published in 1837, sufficiently shows the enormous improvements which had followed upon Obadiah Elliott’s invention of the elliptic springs.[47] In the first place you had a whole series of light, perchless carriages being built, and in the second you had the new macadamised roads upon which to run them.

In treating of all these various carriages, it is difficult to know where to begin. A mere catalogue with a few lines of description cannot be very satisfactory, and yet there seems no other method to adopt. Bridges Adams, who was a coachbuilder himself and the inventor of several novel carriages, is a good guide, but one could have wished that his book had been illustrated by anything rather than those fearsome diagrams which mean so little to any one but a coachbuilder himself. From the beginning of the century, indeed, illustrations of carriages began to take on that diagrammatic aspect which the trade-papers still maintain; while at the same time the old prints and caricatures began to disappear. It is a pity, but it cannot be helped.

“Though it would be difficult,” says Bridges Adams, “to describe every particular variety of carriage now in use, it is comparatively easy to set forth the leading features—the original models, as it were, of each particular class. The distinguishing characteristics are to be found in the form of the bodies and not in the mechanism of the springs or framework. Thus a particular shaped body entitles the carriage to the term Chariot, whether it be constructed with under springs or C springs, or with both, or whether it be with or without a perch. This rule obtains throughout the whole varieties of carriages; and in those bodies which are formed by a combination”—as now began to be the case—“it is customary to call them by a double name—as Cab-Phaeton, Britzschka-Chariot, Britzschka-Phaeton, &c.” Accordingly, I shall endeavour in a brief catalogue to point out such changes as were being made in each broad class of vehicle.

The coach was still being made with a perch. It was not hung so high, but in other respects it differed but little from its predecessors. The Salisbury boot, which carried the coachman’s seat, and the hammercloth, were still used, but for travelling long distances were removed, a smaller platform being substituted in their place. In the _Driving Coach_, a novelty which now became popular with gentlemen of means, and at a later date came to be commonly known as the _four-in-hand_, the wheels were rather nearer together, and the perch was short and straight. This had the boots which, as we have seen, had been already added to the mail-coaches for the convenience of outside passengers. “The boots and body,” says Bridges Adams, “are framed together, and suspended on springs before and behind—the connection with the carriage being by means of curved blocks.”

Another variety of the coach was the _barouche_, which, though, I suppose, not technically a coach at all, if one accepts Thrupp’s definition—for it was roofless—is generally classed with this kind of vehicle. There had been, I believe, a barouche in England so early as 1767, but it was not popular until a much later date. The barouche was simply a coach-body without its upper portion—an open carriage, that is to say, with high driving seat, and a hood fixed to the back if required—not indeed unlike an opened landau to look at. It was purely a town carriage. Its driving seat, similar to that in a landau, was built to hold both coachman and footman, “the hinder part being unprovided with a standard, which would,” says Bridges Adams, “be useless, as when the head is down there is little convenience for the servant’s holders, and he would moreover be unpleasantly placed, looking down on the sitters within, and listening to all the conversation,” a matter of course which he would have been only too pleased to do. The barouche would hold four or six persons, and in fine weather was considered to be “the most delightful of all carriages.” There was, too, a certain amount of state about it, and several noble families continued to drive in them long after most other people had given them up. When Ackermann, the publisher, invented his patent movable axles about 1816, the barouche was one of the carriages to which these axles were fitted. A print of this carriage is shown in the accompanying illustration. A _barouchet_, corresponding to the landaulet, was also built at this time, but was never popular. Bridges Adams speaks of it as a graceless carriage for one horse.

The town chariot, or _coupé_, as it was called in France, and indeed, at a later date in England, was being built lower than before, but otherwise remained unaltered. The high driving seat was still removed to transform the carriage into a post-chaise. Amusing instructions for buying a chariot are given by John Jervis, an old coachman, in the second volume of the _Horse and Carriage Oracle_, 1828. “The form of Carriages,” he opines, “is as absurdly at the Mercy of Fashion, as the Cut of a Coat is—however, if the Reader is willing to let the Builder please himself with the form of the Exterior, he will not be quite so polite as to submit the construction of the Interior entirely to the caprice of his Coachmaker.” Don’t, he advises, have too much stuffing inside: “_The present fashion of Stuffing_ is preposterous, it reduces a Large Body to the size of a small One: however,” he adds obligingly, “if you like to ride about for the benefit of public inspection, as your friends, my _Lady Look-out_, the _Widow Will-be-seen_—and _Sir Simon Stare_, do, pray, study Geoffrey Gambado on the Art of sitting politely in Carriages, with the most becoming attitudes, &c., and choose wide Door Lights and full Squabbing;—if you wish to go about peaceably and quietly, like _Sir Solomon Snug_, and are contented with seeing without being seen, adopt the contracted Lights, and common Stuffing, which, among others, have this great advantage that when you sit back, you may have the side Window down, and a thorough Air passing through the Carriage, without it blowing directly in upon you: this, to Invalids who easily catch Cold, is very important.” The lining of the chariot, he recommends, should be “green, with Lace to correspond, and the Green _silk Sun Shades_ of the same Colour,” green being pleasant to the eye. Venetian blinds, he says, are very nice in warm weather, and should be painted verdigris green on the inside and on the outside a colour which matches with that of the coach-body. Further instructions follow. You are advised never to permit officious strangers to shut your carriage door—a piece of sound advice which might well be followed to-day when seedy people expect a small tip for having watched you get into a cab—and if your coachman sees any one about to do so, he is to say “loudly and imperatively, ‘_Don’t meddle with the Door!_’”

The chief maker of these chariots was the celebrated Samuel Hobson, “who may be truly said to have improved and remodelled every sort of carriage, which came under his notice, especially as regards the artistic form and construction, both of body and carriage.” “Hobson’s Chariots,” indeed, were in a class by themselves. “He lowered the wheels of coaches and chariots,” says Thrupp, “to 3 ft. 3 in. in front and 4 ft. 5 in. behind, and lengthened the carriage part once more to such a true proportion to the whole vehicle as has approved itself as correct to each succeeding generation of Coachbuilders and users of carriages. He lowered the body, too, so that it could be entered by a moderate double step instead of the three-fold ladder previously in use.”

Mr. Jervis’s remarks about the coachmaker’s being allowed to choose the exterior of his customer’s carriage no doubt followed on the practice, mentioned by Bridges Adams, of building particular carriages upon a general chariot basis. Of these hybrids, perhaps the most popular was the _Briska-chariot_. The briska itself (more correctly the _britzschka_) had been introduced into England from Austria about 1818 by Mr. T. G. Adams, though Bridges Adams thinks that it was first brought here at a rather later date by the Earl of Clanwilliam, “who liked it for its lightness; for which reason it probably obtained, amongst coachmen and mechanics, the translated name _Brisker_ or _Brisky_.” In England it was made in various sizes and with various modifications. A small one for one horse was “a light open carriage, fitted with a leathern top over the front inside seat; which top had a glazed front and sides, or glazed front and Venetian blinds to the sides.” Its chief characteristics were a small seat at the back of the main body and a straight bottom line to the body itself—this giving it “a ship-like and fast-going appearance.” Ten years after its introduction it was so immensely popular as to threaten every other carriage; nor was this altogether surprising, for in addition to being liked for the sake of its own lightness, it lent itself so well to every variety of purpose. And of these modified briskas, the _briska-chariot_ was one of the most favoured. It was in particular demand with those travelling abroad, inasmuch as its great length enabled its passengers to lie at full length. Another variety, the _droitzschka_ or _drosky_, was a modification of the Russian vehicle of that name. This was built low, an open perch carriage with a hood, used chiefly by “languid, aged, or nervous persons, and children.” The drosky seems to have given the idea to Mr. David Davies for his _pilentum_, which was very similar in appearance. This Mr. Davies is also supposed to have been the inventor of the popular _cab-phaeton_, a one-horse, low-hung carriage suspended on four elliptic springs. On the Continent this carriage became known as a _milord_, once most aristocratic, but by 1850 little better than a hack. It was somewhat similar in appearance to the _victoria_.

The phaeton was still made, but was being superseded by the briska. The main seat of the carriages, as in the old perch-high phaetons, was still over the front axle, but the body was now hung low on elliptic springs. Such a perchless carriage was called by Adams “the very simplest form of wheeled vehicle in ordinary use. It is literally a long box, with an arm-chair in front, and a bench behind.” And that is a remarkably good description. Here, too, as with the chariots, there were also various hybrids.

Landaulets were very popular in London, and were made in great quantities by the firm with which Obadiah Elliott himself was connected. A patent roof and Ackermann’s movable axles are shown in the accompanying illustration of this carriage.