MANY HANDS MAKE QUICK WORK.

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be drawn, we must have ponderous weight as well as strength to draw it; but most unquestionably two nearly thorough-bred galloways would beat the one elephantine animal hollow, would cost no more to buy, and very little more to keep, independent of going faster, and making the carriage follow so much more smoothly to those riding in or on it; for where one horse is only employed in drawing a heavy carriage, it is exemplifying the old saying, "no longer pipe no longer dance:" the moment the immense animal ceases to tug at the immense carriage, it partially stops; and when he steps up to his collar, he gives us the same pleasing shock we experience when a railway carriage behind gives the one we are riding in one of its forcible hints to move on. With two horses this is not the case, for one or the other keeps it going. Now in a gig, I could tell with my eyes shut, if I was riding in it, whether it was drawn by one horse or two tandem. In the latter case a jerk is seldom felt; in a gig it occurs constantly. What is it makes drawing boats or barges so truly distressing to horses but the everlasting weight on their shoulders from there being of course no declivities to relieve them? So it is in a mitigated sense with the one horse in heavy draught he is always (or comparatively so) at work. When he ceases to be this for the shortest period, the great effort he is forced to make to carry on the carriage again gives the shock I have described, and clearly proves the greatness of the effort. Now this shock bringing sometimes noses close to each other may be pretty fun enough if a gentleman is sitting on one side and a very lovely pair of lips on the other, if he is good marksman enough to catch them; but as in the absence of the "cherry ripes"

one might be seated vis-a-vis a pair of moustaches, I could see no fun in playing battering rams, thick as my scull may be-and in good truth its thickness has been pretty well tried in more ways than committing its fugitive thoughts to paper.

A very great error existed for a long time as to the proper application of weight to horses in two-wheeled carriages with some it probably exists still, though certainly not so generally as it did some years since. This error arose from a perfectly evident conclusion, that the more weight we throw on the horse's back, the less there must be on the wheels; and to effect this a much greater portion of weight was put before the axle in old gigs than in modern ones. Nothing certainly could be more absurd than to suppose this was advantageous to the horse; and yet many sensible men entertained the idea. There can be no doubtbut if we take, say a hundred-weight off the wheels and put it on the horse's back, the wheels would certainly make a hundred-weight less impression on the road, being that much lighter; but it by no means follows that the change is in favour of the horse: in fact, common sense tells us it is the reverse; for if the changing the hundred-weight was advantageous, it must follow that if we could pack the two persons, their luggage, gig, and all on his back, it would be better still; and so on, till, in lieu of a horse drawing a ton of hay, we should be making the experiment of trying how he could carry it, in which I rather imagine we should fail. That weight hanging back so far as to cause any exertion of the horse to keep it down must be a useless expenditure of labour, is quite certain; in fact, the desideratum is to give him if possible increased hold of the ground; but the putting

any portion of weight on his back that he can so much more easily draw is preposterous. A fact has been often proved on the other side to this: put a load behind a horse which he cannot move, and then put an 18st. man on his back, he will draw it. This only shows the effect of increased weight against weight; but it would be a rather curious manœuvre to put an 18st. postilion on one of a pair of horses in order to facilitate his going ten miles an hour in harness, even allowing we took the 18st. from the carriage. Still in many ways are the powers of horses wasted in nearly as ridiculous a manner from want of consideration. It is quite clear, that whatever presses against the front part of the axle has a tendency to drive the wheels back, while whatever acts upon its back part has an opposite effect. If the hind-wheels of those enormous machines the omnibusses were placed a yard further backwards, every jolt would act with a retrograde effect, whereas now each jolt that gives the body a swaying motion actually appears to be kicking the axle (and consequently the wheels) forwards, and to a certain degree does so. Place an elastic perch between two sets of wheels, namely, the fore and the hind ones, and let a weight fall on the centre of the connecting perch, the hindwheels will be found to move backwards and the fore ones forwards, which shows that pressing behind one axle and before the other produces the effect I have stated: make the perch perfectly stiff, no effect on the wheels as to propelling backwards or forwards would be produced. It may be said the body of an omnibus is not elastic granted; and place that body straight on the two axles, the two pair of wheels would each move forward in the same degree if the carriage was pulled,

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EASE OF ANIMALS SELDOM CONSIDERED.

no matter whether the hind-wheels were a yard farther more backward or more forward; but as the elliptic springs before and behind allow the carriage the liberty of pitching forwards and backwards, or in other words up and down, when the hinder part dips, it in a certain manner gives a forward impetus to the hind-wheels, and the carriage progresses. Carriages are specifically lighter without a perch than with one; but if we were to place the hind-wheels of such carriages very far behind, the body being on springs, I have no doubt but that, notwithstanding the additional weight a perch would be, such carriage would run lighter with one than without, as it would, by connecting the two axles, prevent the inclination backwards given to the hinder one by the pressure of the weight before it. If horses could talk they would very much enlighten us as to where we do and where we do not apply weight to their advantage.

To enable horses to draw weight with the most ease to themselves, it must be quite evident that the means by which they draw being so adjusted to enable them to work with the greatest comfort and advantage ought to be most minutely attended to; but it is a lamentable fact, that in our own country this is less attended to where the greatest labour is often required than it is where less exertion is called for; and I must with sorrow but candour confess, I do hold the lower orders of my countrymen, when they appear in the character of omnibus drivers, postboys, horsekeepers in coaching stables, carters, grooms, with a long string of et-ceteras, to be the greatest brutes possible to horses. The very wretch who owes his livelihood to an unfortunate ass or miserable pony uses him ill, and hundreds of animals are daily working in

NECK COLLARS AND NECKLACES.

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torture, where one shilling out of the many his brutal master spends in brutalising himself would remedy the evil; but, without alluding to suffering occasioned by such wanton neglect and brutality, many horses work to great disadvantage from mistaken notions in their masters, arising from not knowing how to order things better, or from a wish to be thought stylish, knowing, or fashionable. A few years since it became the fashion to have a collar made so lightlooking that the part over the withers was not wider than a pair of tweezers, and the lower part under the throat about the size of the coral necklaces then so much the fashion with ladies. This minute appendage was all right and proper on a beautiful neck, any part of which it amounted to profanation to hide, and which was intended and let us hope destined to be pressed by some favoured and thrice happy lover; but its copy became a sad source of suffering to the neck of an animal destined to labour in our service in drawing heavy weights; yet for years animals were compelled to suffer thus in gentlemen's carriages, and more especially in hackney-coaches. Stage coachowners were the first to get sensible collars, and the late mania for imitating stage-coaches, stage-coachmen, and stage-harness, first brought gentlemen and others to use proper collars: thus hundreds of the best educated and most enlightened men of their age were set right by some man who probably had never learned his A B C, but, fortunately for horses, possessed common sense. What has been the result? instead of shoulders frightful to look upon, we now see hundred-and-fifty guinea horses in harness during a portion of the year without a hair disturbed or the vestige of a collar-mark. The present