Chapter VIII: Part 8

We come now to the two-wheeled carriages. Of these the most fashionable was still the curricle, though Bridges Adams considered the shape of the body “certainly unsightly.” It is interesting to notice in this connection that the mode of attaching the two horses to the curricle was “precisely that of the classic car, only more elegant.” It was in a curricle that Charles Dickens rode about so soon as he was able to afford the luxury of a private carriage. The _cabriolet_, somewhat similar to it in form, was simply the old one-horse chaise brought up to date. The body resembled a nautilus shell, thus differing from the popular two-wheeled carriage called a _tilbury_. This had been built first by a carriage-maker of the same name. It was constructed without a boot (or hind seat) and was a very light carriage, with, however, rather too much ironwork and too many springs—seven in all—about it. Italy and Portugal seem to have taken to this particular gig and numerous consignments were sent south by water. Another vehicle, not very different, was the _stanhope_, also built by Tilbury to the order of the Hon. Fitzroy Stanhope, a brother of Lord Petersham. This was much like the old rib chair, but hung from four springs. The only difference, so far as the shape of their bodies goes, between the tilbury and the stanhope is to be found in the fact that in the stanhope it is rather larger and more capacious. The _dennet_, invented by a Mr. Bennett of Finsbury, had a body resembling that of a phaeton. It had three springs, and Bridges Adams, without being certain upon the point, thinks that it took its name from these three springs, which were named after the three Misses Dennet, “whose elegant stage-dancing was so much in vogue about the time the vehicle was first used.” The lightest of all these carriages, however, was the common gig, such as that arch-joker, Theodore Hook, was accustomed to drive in, which at this time was “simply an open railed chair, fixed on the shafts, and supported on two side springs, the harder ends of which were connected to the loop irons by leathern braces—to give more freedom to the motion.” Small alterations in the gig, such as the addition of a deep boot and Venetian blinds to the lockers (to carry dogs) led to the first _dog-cart_. Here the passengers sat back to back. _Tandem-carts_ were very similar, though here the driver’s seat was raised. The dog-cart itself gave rise to numerous varieties, such as the _Newport_, the _Malvern_, the _Whitechapel_, the _sliding body_, and the _Norwich_ carts.

In America the _buggy_, a light waggon, the _sulky_, the _fantail gig_, the _tub-bodied gig_, the _chariotee_, and the _public sociable_ were the chief carriages. The _rockaway_, made first in 1830, was a light waggon with wooden springs on the outside of the body. The _volante_, much used at this time by the Spanish ladies of South America and Cuba, was a hooded gig upon two high wheels. But in America, as in Europe, no entirely new bodies or methods of framing were needed, and such little differences as there were are only of interest to the coachbuilder or the expert.

Before passing, however, to the public conveyances, to which, it would seem, most carriage-builders of an inventive turn were now giving their attention, I may mention one or two particularly quaint or fanciful carriages which do not readily fall into a recognised class.

About this time several people seem to have been at pains to produce a three-wheeled carriage, “apparently designed,” says Croal, “to overcome an element of danger in the ordinary two-wheeled gig, in which so much of the business and pleasure of travelling took place.” In America, the chief experiments in this direction were made by Dr. Nott, president of Union College at Schenectady, who produced a three-wheeled chariot, in which he drove about.[48] “The body of the vehicle was supported by the near axle on two wheels, while a third wheel in front was in close connection with the shafts, so that it revolved with them as they turned. By this arrangement the body of the carriage could be hung low, supported entirely by the wheels, while the third wheel in front, revolving in a small circle with the shaft, enabled the occupants to make a short and safe turn.” What became of this weird vehicle is not known, but its inventor’s memory was enshrined in a song, one verse of which runs as follows:—

“Where, oh where, is the good old Doctor?
Where, oh where, is the good old Doctor?
He went up in the Three Wheel Chariot,
Safe into the Promised Land!”

A six-wheeled carriage was also proposed by Sir Sidney Smith. Here, as in Bridges Adams’s various equirotal carriages (never successful and particularly ugly, so far as the pictures of them are concerned), the wheels were all of equal size. Great things were promised of it, but that was all. The question, however, of safety carriages was being very widely considered. Accidents must have been all too frequent. Runaway horses and high gigs between them were constantly bringing the more reckless drivers to an untimely end. In 1825 a good proposal was made for a safety gig, which was to have a contrivance fixed to the shafts so that they should remain in a horizontal position, whether the horse were between them or not. Experiments were also made with some such contrivance as Sir Francis Delavel had first tried with his eighteenth-century phaeton. And then came a time when almost every coachbuilder had some “pet dodge” with which the dangers of travelling were supposed to be reduced to a minimum.

In Ireland, where at a very early date a rough, flat-boarded waggon on two solid wheels had been used for passenger-traffic—in which case the passengers sat on the boards back to back with their legs dangling over the sides—a peculiar vehicle called a _noddy_ was now popular. A writer in _Blackwood’s Magazine_ for 1826 speaks of this carriage.

“A chaise and pair, miserable in show and substance as both
really were, was a species of luxurious conveyance to which
the ambition of the middle class of travellers in Ireland
before 1800 never ventured to aspire. Such as were content
with a less dignified mode of travelling on wheels, the
city of Dublin accommodated with a vehicle unparalleled, I
believe, in any part of the world, and singular in name as
well as construction. It was called a _Noddy_, drawn by one
horse, and carrying two, or if not of overgrown dimensions,
three passengers. The body of this ‘leathern convenience,’
which bore some resemblance to an old-fashioned phaeton,
‘beetled o’er its base’ in front, the better to protect the
inmates; and being slung from cross-bars by strong braces
instead of springs, nodded formidably at every movement of the
horse, hence deriving the appropriate appellation of Noddy.
In case of rain blowing in, a curtain of the same material
afforded its friendly shelter, wrapping the passengers in
total darkness, though, as far as the prospect was concerned,
the inconvenience was little; the only visible object when
it was withdrawn being the broad back and shoulders of the
brawny driver, who rested his legs upon the shaft, and his
sitting part on a sort of stool a very little way removed
from the knees of the person seated within. Simple, awkward,
and uneasy as this contrivance was, it was not disdained even
by senators at an earlier period than that of which I write;
and a nobleman, some thirty years older than myself, too, of
high rank and large estate, assured me that it was his usual
conveyance to and from college accompanied by a trusty servant
or private tutor.”

The ordinary _jaunting car_ and the larger _bian_—the invention of Bianconi, a rich tradesman in Dublin, though for many years an itinerant dealer—hardly differed in points of construction from English carriages, though the passengers sat back to back on a seat that ran parallel to the shafts.

In Wales the _market cart_ was even more primitive than the noddy of Ireland. This was a low, two-wheeled, springless box of an affair, in which you sat as best you could on the boards. There was no covering at all. A rail at the back, extending some way along the sides, helped to prevent you from falling out behind, if the horse gave a sudden lurch forward.

Whilst European carriages were thus taking on a soberer aspect, Eastern coaches were maintaining all their old magnificence. The Maharajah of Mysore, to take one instance, travelled in a truly marvellous elephant carriage in the early years of the nineteenth century.

“Its interior was a double sofa for six persons, covered
with dark green velvet and gold, surmounted by an awning of
cloth of gold, in the shape of two small scalloped domes,
meeting over the centre, and surrounded by a richly ornamented
verandah, supported by light, elegant, fluted gilt pillars.
The whole was capable of containing sixty persons, and was
about twenty-two feet in height. It moved on four wheels, the
hinder ones eight feet in diameter, with a breadth of twelve
feet between them. It was drawn by six immense elephants,
an exact match in size, with a driver on each, harnessed to
the carriage by traces, as in England, and their huge heads
covered with a sort of cap made of richly embroidered cloth.
The pace at which the elephants moved was a slow trot, of
about seven miles an hour—they were very steady, and the
springs of the coach particularly easy. The shape of the
body was that of an extremely elegant flat scallop-shell,
painted dark green and gold. This magnificent carriage was
the production of native workmen, assisted by a half-caste
Frenchman.”

Even this vehicle, however, was eclipsed by the state carriage of a ruling Burmese chief, captured by the British in 1824. “This carriage presented one entire blaze of gold, silver, and precious stones; the last-named amounting to many thousands, including diamonds, rubies, blue and white sapphires, emeralds, amethysts, garnets, topazes, crystals, and the curious and rare stones known as cat’s eyes. The carriage stood nearly thirty feet in height,” and was drawn by elephants. “In form and construction,” says Croal, “in its elaborate and superior carving, and its grand and imposing effect, this coach takes rank as one of the most splendid equipages in existence.”

Many changes, meanwhile, were taking place in the public carriages.

Of the mail-coaches I need say nothing at all. Numerous books exist which retell all those romances of the road which even in these days of motor-cars cannot be altogether forgotten. The Golden Age of coaching was at hand, and no print-shop is complete without some score or more of carefully coloured engravings of one or other of “the Mails.” They bore particular names—there were Flying Machines and Telegraphs and the like—and they were larger than in the days when Palmer had inaugurated the system, but that was all.[49]

Coming to such public vehicles, however, as were in general confined to the metropolis, we find many changes.

The old hackney-coaches still plied for hire. They had their particular stands, and the fares were subject to strict, though sometimes exceedingly quaint, regulations. The first section of the new _Orders_ issued in 1821 may be quoted as bearing upon the structure of the hackneys.

“It is ordered, constituted, and ordained, that, from and
after the four-and-twentieth Day of _June_ next ensuing the
Day of the Date of these Presents, the Perch of every Coach
shall be Ten Feet long at the least; and such Coach [shall]
have cross Leather Braces before, and not braced down, but
shall hang upon a Level, and not higher behind than before,
and to be decent, clean, strong, and warm, with Glass Windows
on each Side, or Shutters with Glasses of Nine Inches in
Length, and Six Inches in Breadth in each Shutter; and large
enough to carry Four Persons conveniently; and the Horses to
every such Coach shall be able and sufficient for the Business
when such Coach and Horses come from Home, to Ply; on a
Penalty not exceeding Ten Shillings, at the Discretion of the
said Commissioners, to be paid by the Owner of the License,
if the same be not rented out, and in Case the same shall be
rented out, then upon a Renter thereof.”

Leigh Hunt could find little good to say of them. Says he, quoting from a supposititious poetess:—

“Thou inconvenience! thou hungry crop
For all corn! thou small creeper to and fro
Who while thou goest ever seem’st to stop,
And fiddle-faddle standest while you go;
I’the morning, freighted with a weight of woe,
Unto some Lazar-house thou journiest,
And in the evening tak’st a double row
Of dowdies, for some dance or party drest,
Besides the goods meanwhile thou movest east and west.

“By thy ungallant bearing and sad mien,
An inch appears the utmost thou couldst budge;
Yet at the slightest nod, or hint, or sign,
Round to the curb-stone patient dost thou trudge;
School’d in a beckon, learned in a nudge;
A dull-eyed Argus watching for a fare;
Quiet and plodding, thou doest bear no grudge
To whisking Tilburies, or Phaetons rare,
Curricles, or Mail-coaches, swift beyond compare.”

Dickens was familiar with these hackneys, and in one of the _Sketches by Boz_ draws a picture of them.

“Take a regular, ponderous, rickety, London hackney-coach, of
the old school, and let any man have the boldness to assert,
if he can, that he ever beheld any object on the face of
the earth which at all resembles it unless, indeed, it were
another hackney-coach of the same date. We have recently
observed on certain stands, and we say it with deep regret,
rather dapper green chariots, and coaches of polished yellow,
with four wheels of the same colour as the coach, whereas
it is perfectly notorious to every one who has studied the
subject, that every wheel ought to be of a different colour,
and a different size. These are innovations, and, like other
miscalled improvements, awful signs of the restlessness
of the public mind, and the little respect paid to our
time-honoured institutions. Why should hackney-coaches be
clean? Our ancestors found them dirty, and left them so. Why
should we, with a feverish wish to ‘keep moving,’ desire to
roll along at the rate of six miles an hour, while they were
content to rumble over the stones at four? These are solemn
considerations. Hackney-coaches are part and parcel of the law
of the land; they were settled by the Legislature; plated and
numbered by the wisdom of Parliament.

“Then why have they been swamped by cabs and omnibuses? Or
why should people be allowed to ride quickly for eightpence a
mile, after Parliament had come to the solemn decision that
they should pay a shilling a mile for riding slowly? We pause
for a reply—and, having no chance of getting one, begin a
fresh paragraph....

“There is a hackney-coach stand under the very window at
which we are writing; there is only one coach on it now, but
it is a fair specimen of the class of vehicles to which we
have alluded—a great, lumbering, square concern, of a dingy
yellow colour (like a bilious brunette), with very small
glasses, but very huge frames; the panels are ornamented with
a faded coat of arms, in shape something like a dissected
bat, the axle-tree is red, and the majority of the wheels are
green. The box is partially covered by an old great-coat,
with a multiplicity of capes, and some extraordinary-looking
clothes; and the straw, with which the canvas cushion is
stuffed, is sticking up in several places, as if in rivalry of
the hay, which is peeping through the chinks in the boot. The
horses with drooping heads, and each with a mane and tail as
scanty and straggling as those of a worn-out rocking-horse,
are standing patiently on some damp straw, occasionally
wincing, and rattling the harness; and now and then, one of
them lifts his mouth to the ear of his companion, as if he
were saying in a whisper, that he should like to assassinate
the coachman. The coachman himself is in the watering-house;
and the waterman, with his hands forced into his pockets as
far as they can possibly go, is dancing the ‘double shuffle,’
in front of the pump, to keep his feet warm....

“Talk of cabs! Cabs are all very well in cases of expedition,
when it’s a matter of neck or nothing, life or death, your
temporary home or your long one. But, besides a cab’s lacking
that gravity of deportment which so peculiarly distinguishes
a hackney-coach, let it never be forgotten that a cab is a
thing of yesterday, and that he never was anything better.
A hackney-cab had always been a hackney-cab, from his first
entry into life; whereas a hackney-coach is a remnant of past
gentility, a victim to fashion, a hanger-on of an old English
family, wearing their arms, and in days of yore, escorted by
men wearing their livery, stripped of his finery, and thrown
upon the world, like a once-smart footman when he is no longer
sufficiently juvenile for his office, progressing lower and
lower in the scale of four-wheeled degradation, until at last
it comes to—a _stand_!”

These new cabs, indeed, were, as Dickens says, a thing of yesterday, but they had had ancestors. Their immediate forefathers came from Paris, where they had been known for some time under the name of _cabriolets de place_. Light two-wheeled carriages, these were, which had been evolved quite naturally from the original French gig of the seventeenth century. The popularity of these cabriolets in Paris naturally led certain enterprising people in London to attempt their importation, but there was a difficulty to be surmounted. The proprietors of the hackney-coaches had secured a monopoly for carrying people in the streets of London. In 1805, however, licences were obtained for nine cabriolets, which thereupon started to run. In these two passengers could be carried, and the driver sat side by side with his fares.

They were not a great success. In the first place they were not allowed except in certain areas, and in the second passengers did not apparently appreciate the close proximity of the driver. A number of years passed before they either increased in numbers or caught the public fancy. But in 1823, the Mr. Davies who had designed the cab-phaeton built twelve new cabriolets, which were put on to the streets for hire at the end of April.

“‘Cabriolets,’ runs a newspaper account, ‘were, in honour
of His Majesty’s birthday, introduced to the public this
[April 23rd] morning. They are built to hold two persons
inside besides the driver (who is partitioned off from his
company), and are furnished with a book of fares for the use
of the public, to prevent the possibility of imposition. These
books will be found in a pocket hung inside the head of the
cabriolet. The fares are one-third less than hackney-coaches.’”

These new cabs, painted yellow, had one novel feature which must have astonished the inhabitants, for the driver’s seat was a rather comical affair at the side—entirely _outside_ the hood. In this way privacy was ensured, particularly if the curtains in front of the hood were drawn together. “The hood,” says Mr. Moore,[50] “strongly resembled a coffin standing on end, and earned for the vehicle the nickname of ‘coffin-cab.’” Cruikshank’s picture of one of these, to illustrate a Sketch by Boz, shows the curious shape of the hood very well. In a short while these cabriolets became popular—there were over one hundred and fifty of them in 1830—particularly with the younger generation. A verse of a then popular song mentions them:—

“In days of old when folks got tired,
A hackney-coach or a chariot was hired;
But now along the streets they roll ye
In a _shay_ with a cover called a _cabrioly_,”

which hints at a slightly incorrect pronunciation! But in a short while the cockney found it easier to say _cab_, did so, and has done so ever since.

Dickens describes these cabs in his essay on the London streets:—

“Cabs, with trunks and band-boxes between the drivers’ legs
and outside the apron, rattle briskly up and down the streets
on their way to the coach-offices or steam-packet wharfs; and
the cab-drivers and hackney-coachmen who are on the stand
polish up the ornamental part of their dingy vehicles—the
former wondering how people can prefer ‘them wild beast
cariwans of homnibuses, to a riglar cab with a fast trotter,’
and the latter admiring how people can trust their necks into
one of ‘them crazy cabs, when they can have a ’spectable
’ackney cotche with a pair of ’orses as von’t run away with
no vun’; a consolation unquestionably founded on fact, seeing
that a hackney-coach horse never was known to run at all,
‘except,’ as the smart cabman in front of the rank observes,
‘except one, and he run back’ards.’”

(_From a Drawing by Cruikshank_)]

(_From “Omnibuses and Cabs”_)]

There is another sketch of Dickens which merits quotation here. The two-wheeled cabs were, of course, soon superseded by others of more modern appearance, and Dickens speaks of the last of the cab-drivers and his particular cab, with a few instructions upon riding in it.

This cabriolet “was gorgeously painted—a bright red; and
wherever we went, City or West End, Paddington or Holloway,
North, East, West, or South, there was the red cab, bumping up
against the posts at the street corners, and turning in and
out, among hackney-coaches, and drays, and carts, and waggons,
and omnibuses, and contriving by some strange means or other,
to get out of places which no other vehicle but the red cab
could ever by any possibility have contrived to get into at
all. Our fondness for that red cab was unbounded. How we
should have liked to have seen it in the circle at Astley’s!...

“Some people object to the exertion of getting into cabs,
and others object to the difficulty of getting out of them;
we think both these are objections which take their rise
in perverse and ill-conditioned minds. The getting into a
cab is a very pretty and graceful process, which, when well
performed, is essentially melodramatic. First, there is the
expressive pantomime of every one of the eighteen cabmen on
the stand, the moment you raise your eyes from the ground.
Then there is your own pantomime in reply—quite a little
ballet. Four cabs immediately leave the stand, for your
especial accommodation; and the evolutions of the animals
who draw them are beautiful in the extreme, as they grate
the wheels of the cabs against the curb-stones, and sport
playfully in the kennel. You single out a particular cab, and
dart swiftly towards it. One bound, and you are on the first
step; turn your body lightly round to the right, and you are
on the second; bend gracefully beneath the reins, working
round to the left at the same time, and you are in the cab.
There is no difficulty in finding a seat: the apron knocks you
comfortably into it at once, and off you go.

“The getting out of a cab is, perhaps, rather more complicated
in its theory, and a shade more difficult in its execution.
We have studied the subject a good deal, and we think the
best way is to throw yourself out, and trust to chance for
alighting on your feet. If you make the driver alight first,
and then throw yourself upon him, you will find that he breaks
your fall materially. In the event of your contemplating an
offer of eightpence, on no account make the tender, or show
your money, until you are safely on the pavement. It is very
bad policy attempting to save the fourpence. You are very much
in the power of a cabman, and he considers it a kind of fee
not to do you any wilful damage. Any instruction, however, in
the art of getting out of a cab is wholly unnecessary if you
are going any distance, because the probability is that you
will be shot lightly out before you have completed the third
mile.

“We are not aware of any instance on record in which a
cab-horse has performed three consecutive miles without
going down once. What of that? It is all excitement. And
in these days of derangement of the nervous system and
universal lassitude, people are content to pay handsomely for
excitement; where can it be procured at a cheaper rate?”

Thomas Hood also mentions both hackney-coaches and cabs in one of his comic poems, _Conveyancing_.

“O, London is the place for all
In love with loco-motion!
Still to and fro the people go
Like billows of the ocean;
Machine or man, or caravan,
Can all be had for paying,
When great estates, or heavy weights,
Or bodies want conveying.

“There’s always hacks about in packs,
Wherein you may be shaken,
And Jarvis is not always _drunk_,
Tho’ always _overtaken_;
In racing tricks he’ll never mix,
His nags are in their last days,
And slow to go, altho’ they show
As if they had their _fast days_!

“Then if you like a single horse,
This age is quite a _cab-age_,
A car not quite so small and light
As those of our Queen _Mab_ age;
The horses have been _broken well_,
All danger is rescinded,
For some have _broken both their knees_,
And some are _broken-winded_.”

While these cabs were still running, several experiments were being made with patent carriages. One of these, placed on the streets for a short while, was the invention of Mr. William Boulnois. “It was a two-wheeled closed vehicle,” says Mr. Moore, “constructed to carry two passengers sitting face to face. The driver sat on a small and particularly unsafe seat on the top of it, and the door was at the back. It was, in fact, so much like the front of an omnibus that it was well known as the _omnibus slice_. Its popular name was the _back-door cab_. Superior people called it a _minibus_. This cab was quickly followed by a very similar, although larger, vehicle invented by Mr. Harvey. It was called a _duobus_.” These two cabs cannot have been very comfortable; the shafts were too short, and the knowledge that a possibly heavy coachman was sitting just above your head seems to have militated against their success.

Another cab, not wholly successful in itself, led the way to the widely popular _hansom_. This was a carriage invented in 1834 by Mr. Aloysius Hansom, the architect of the Birmingham Town Hall. Here the body was “almost square and hung in the centre of a square frame.” The driver, as before, sat on the roof, but had a small seat fixed there for his convenience. The doors were in front, on either side of the driver’s seat. And the wheels were of a prodigious height—being seven feet six inches. Mr. Hansom, who had obviously seen one of Francis Moore’s patent carriages of 1790,[51] himself drove this carriage from Hinckley in Leicestershire to London, and found financial support from Mr. Boulnois. Further experiments were made—in one model you had to enter the carriage actually _through_ the wheels, the door being in this case at the sides—and it was found that the wheels could be made considerably smaller without danger or inconvenience. Whereupon a company was formed to purchase the invention for a sum of ten thousand pounds. Hansom, however, obtained no more than three hundred, the balance being used to perfect the far from satisfactory cabs which had been placed on the streets. Such improvements as were carried out were the work of Mr. John Chapman,[52] then secretary to the Safety Cabriolet and Two-Wheel Carriage Company, who produced a much safer vehicle, afterwards purchased by Hansom’s company. This new cab was placed on the streets in 1836, and proved such a success that it was imitated by numerous other companies. Legal proceedings were instituted, but proved both expensive and not particularly successful, and the “pirate” cabs were allowed to flourish as best they could.

Then, in 1836, was made the first of those four-wheeled cabs,[53] which were not really cabs at all, but which will never be known by any other name. The first of these was built by the ingenious Mr. Davies. It bore superficial resemblance to the chariot. Two passengers could ride inside, and a third on the box at the coachman’s side. At this date the old two-wheeled cabs were “a source of acknowledged disgrace, of many alarming accidents, and of lamentable loss of life,” and a company was formed to provide “a cheap, expeditious, safe, and commodious mode of conveyance in lieu of the present disgraceful and ill-conducted cabriolets.” Two years later Lord Brougham was so pleased with the appearance of these new cabs that he ordered one for his own use. So was the first _brougham_ constructed—the earliest private four-wheeled closed carriage to be drawn by a single horse.

“The original brougham,” says Sir Walter Gilbey,[54] “differed
in many particulars of design, proportion, construction, and
finish from the modern carriage. The body ... was several
inches wider in front than at the back, and though both larger
and heavier, was neither so comfortable nor so convenient....
[It] was held together by heavy, flat iron plates throughout,
and the front boot was connected with the front pillars by
strong outside iron stays, fixed with bolts. The wheels were
at once smaller in diameter and much heavier. [The carriage]
carried a large guard or ‘opera board’ at the back of the body
to protect the occupants from risk of injury in a crush, when
the pole of a carriage behind might otherwise break through
the back panel—an accident now occasionally seen in our
crowded streets. Like all other carriages of the time there
was a sword case in the back panel for weapons. It was painted
olive green, a very fashionable colour at that period.”

Another hansom, the _tribus_, may be noticed here, though it was not invented until 1844. In this carriage the driver’s seat was at the back on a level with the roof, and the door to his left at the back—the reason of this being that the driver could open or close it without leaving his seat. Another peculiarity was the presence of five windows, two in front, one at either side, and a fifth at the back underneath the driver’s seat. The _tribus_ was the invention of Mr. Harvey, who also built a _curricle tribus_, for two horses, but neither was successful. The _quartobus_ (1844) of Mr. Okey, a four-wheeled vehicle to hold four inside passengers, was likewise withdrawn after a short trial.

A word may here be said of the _omnibus_, which had been introduced in 1819 into Paris, though not under that name, by M. Jacques Laffitte. It was a modern outcome of the old _gondola_. Nine years later the modern name was given to it by M. Baudry, a retired military officer. Laffitte had rivals, and ultimately determined to triumph over them by building a superior vehicle. At this time one of the most celebrated coachbuilders in Paris was an Englishman, once in the Navy, named George Shillibeer. To him came Laffitte, and Shillibeer, whilst at work on the new conveyance, conceived the idea of starting a similar one in London. Accordingly he shipped one over and ran it from Paddington to the Bank. This first omnibus of his was a long, much be-windowed, four-wheeled carriage with a door at the back, and not unlike a private omnibus of to-day. A top-hatted coachman sat on a high seat in front and drove three horses abreast. This was in 1819, and from that time, in spite of the usual opposition, these new and rather unsightly vehicles increased in numbers until there were forty or fifty routes in London alone upon which they were to be hourly seen. A song sung with great success at a time when Shillibeer was extending his operations, particularly in the direction of Greenwich, whither it was proposed to run one of the new railroads, may be quoted:—

“By a Joint-Stock Company taken in hand,
A railroad from London to Greenwich is plann’d,
But they’re sure to be beat, ’tis most certainly clear,
Their rival has got the start—George Shillibeer.

“I will not for certainty vouch for the fact,
But believe that he means to run over the Act
Which Parliament pass’d at the end of last year,
Now made null and void by the new Shillibeer.

“His elegant _omnis_, which now throng the road,
Up and down every hour most constantly load;
Across all the three bridges how gaily appear
The _Original Omnibus_—George Shillibeer.

“These pleasure and comfort with safety combine,
They will neither blow up nor explode like a mine;
Those who ride on the railroad might half die with fear—
You can come to no harm in the new Shillibeer.

“How exceedingly elegant fitted, inside,
With mahogany polished—soft cushions—beside
Bright brass ventilators at each end appear,
The latest improvements in the new Shillibeer.

“Here no draughts of air cause a rick in the neck,
Or huge bursting boilers blow all to a wreck,
But as safe as at home you from all danger steer
While you travel abroad in the gay Shillibeer.

“Then of the exterior I safely may say
There never was yet any carriage more gay,
While the round-tire wheels make it plainly appear
That there’s none run so light as the smart Shillibeer.

“His conductors are famous for being polite,
Obliging and civil, they always act right,
For if just complaint only comes to his ear,
They are not long conductors for George Shillibeer.

“It was meant that they all should wear dresses alike,
But bad luck has prompted the tailors to strike.
When they go to their work, his men will appear
_A la Française, Conducteur à Mons. Shillibeer_.

“Unlike the conductors by tailors opprest,
His horses have all in new harness been drest:
The cattle are good, the men’s orders are clear,
Not to gallop or race—so says Shillibeer.

“That the beauties of Greenwich and Deptford may ride
In his elegant omni is the height of his pride—
So the plan for a railroad must soon disappear
While the public approve of the new Shillibeer.”

_Chapter the Tenth_

_MODERN CARRIAGES_

“Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar
Drag the slow barge, or urge the rapid car;
Or on wide waving wings expanded bear
The flying chariot through the realms of air.”

_Erasmus Darwin._

The year of Queen Victoria’s Coronation saw the successful opening of the London and Birmingham Railway, and from that time all but a few obstinate folk recognised the fact that the horse as a necessary adjunct to cross-country travelling was doomed. For some time, indeed, certain ingenious gentlemen had been carrying out a number of experiments with self-propelled carriages. Fifteen years before, several inventors had produced cumbrous machines which, without requiring rails, were able to progress along the roads at speeds which compared favourably with those attained by the ordinary coaches. Sir Goldsmith Gurney—to mention, perhaps, the most prominent of these men—had patented a steam-carriage in 1827 which, in spite of attacks from an irate populace who feared machinery as they feared the devil, was quite successful enough to lead the enterprising Mr. Hanning to ask for, and obtain, permission to run similar machines on many of the principal roads of England. Indeed, for a short while, there seems to have been a regular service of these primitive automobiles. Many people, it is true, fought shy of Gurney’s boilers, which in spite of the fact that they had been “constructed upon philosophical principles” occasionally exploded. It was after such an explosion at Glasgow that Tom Hood seized the opportunity to write the following lines:—

“Instead of _journeys_, people now
May go upon a _Gurney_,
With steam to do the horses’ work
By power of attorney:

“Tho’ with a load it may explode
And you may all be undone;
And find you’re going up to Heaven
Instead of up to London.”

Similarly, many people declared their intention of never patronising the railroads. Steam, however, had come to stay, and the days of coaching were already numbered.

The net result of the new state of things, so far as private carriages were concerned, seems to have been that the coachbuilders set themselves to perfect the urban vehicles, which became lighter, soberer, and more various. New and less conventional “models” were constantly being exhibited, while for those who could not afford more than a single carriage adaptable bodies were devised. So you might order a vehicle which with small trouble could be entirely changed in appearance. The older dignity, moreover, was giving place to a new smartness. “Carriage people” still formed a class, but families which before had been satisfied to use such public conveyances as there had been, now drove forth in one or other of the cheaper private carriages which were being constructed particularly for their convenience. The dog-cart, for instance, had become common and was undergoing various metamorphoses, and the brougham was rapidly becoming the most popular of all town vehicles. In country lanes, too, appeared the waggonette and its kind. Nothing, indeed, was quite so light as the American buggy with its shallow dish of a body and its extraordinarily thin wheels, but there was no longer that heaviness of line which gives to the older carriages what is to modern eyes such an uncomfortable appearance.

So in 1860 a London coachbuilder could write to the American author of _The World on Wheels_:—

“Ten years have completed a total revolution in the carriage
trade in England. Not only have the Court and the nobility
adopted economical habits, and insisted on cheap carriages,
but they carry no luggage, as was formerly the case when
carriages had to sustain great weight, both of passengers
and luggage. The cumbrous Court carriages of former times
are being gradually abolished, and instead of the rich
linings, laces, fringes, and elaborate heraldry usual to the
carriages of the nobility, light vehicles, furnished only
with a crest, are used. The changes in construction, and
consequent depreciation of stock, were a heavy blow to the
master coachbuilders; many of the large houses must have
lost, in this manner, from ten to twenty thousand pounds. The
trade, having recovered from this blow, is in a more healthy
state. The favourite carriages in England at this time were
waggonettes, sociables, Stanhope and mail phaetons, basket
phaetons and landaus.”

I may speak first of the state or “dress” carriages. “These
vehicles,” says Thrupp, “had long passed the period in which
beautiful carving and elegant painting had been used to
disguise, as far as possible, the clumsy state carriages of
the eighteenth century. Ever since the building of the Irish
Lord Chancellor’s state coach by Hatchett or Baxter in 1790,
coachbuilders had endeavoured to produce a graceful outline
of body, of a fair size no larger than was necessary; the
C-springs had been made of a perfect curve, the perch followed
the sweeps of the body, the carving was reduced to a moderate
amount, the ornamental painting was confined to the stripes
upon the wheels, and the heraldic bearings of the owners of
the carriages were beautifully emblazoned on the panels. For
further ornament they relied on plated work in brass or silver
round the body and on loops and wheel hoops. In every capital
of Europe such carriages had superseded the old style, and
London and Paris had supplied other countries with most of
these state carriages.”

At the Queen’s Coronation in 1838, Londoners had a good opportunity of seeing these dress carriages, a number of which early in the day were lined up in Birdcage Walk. Most of these belonged to the various ambassadors. The one which excited the widest admiration belonged to Marshal Soult—a French-built carriage, originally built for one of the Royal family. Thrupp describes it. “The body had four upper quarter glasses, with a very elegant deep and pierced cornice of silver round the roof; there were four lamps with large coronets on the tops, and the coach bore a coronet on the roof also. The colouring of the painting was a lovely blue, such as was then called Adelaide blue;[55] this had been varnished with white spirit varnish, and seemed almost transparent in lustre. The whole coach was ornamented with silver and was finished in great taste.” Other particulars of these carriages are to be found in the contemporary newspaper reports. We are told of the enormous prices paid. Count Strogonoff purchased for £1600 the carriage which had originally been built at a cost of £3000 by the Duke of Devonshire for his state visit to St. Petersburg. Another ambassador, finding that it was too late to buy a carriage, hired one from one of the Sheriffs at a cost of £250 for the occasion, which strikes one as an excessive price even for Coronation Day.

(_From Sir Walter Gilbey’s “Modern Carriages”_)]

Modern state carriages retain all their former magnificence with little if any of the old cumbersome and unnecessary ornament. One of the finest examples of this kind of carriage is the state landau built for King Edward and used by him in the Coronation procession.

“This magnificent example of the coachbuilder’s art,” says
Sir Walter Gilbey, “is over eighteen feet long. The body is
hung upon C-springs by strong braces covered with ornamentally
stitched morocco; each brace is joined with a massive gilt
buckle with oak leaf and crown device. Between the hind
springs is a rumble for two footmen; there is no driving seat,
as the carriage is intended to be drawn only by horses ridden
postilion. The panels are painted in purple lake considerably
brighter than is usual in order to secure greater effect;
marking the contours of the body and the outlines of the
rumble are mouldings in wood carved and gilt, the design being
one of overlapping oak leaves.

“The door panels, back and front panels, bear the Royal Arms
with crown, supporters, mantle, motto, helmet, and garter.
On the lower quarter panel is the collar of the Order of the
Garter, encircling its star and surmounted by the Tudor crown.
Springing in a slow, graceful curve from the underpart of the
body over the forecarriage is a ‘splasher’ of crimson patent
leather. Ornamental brass lamps are carried in brackets at
each of the four corners of the body.

“As regards the interior of this beautiful carriage, it is
upholstered in crimson satin and laces which were woven in
Spitalfields; the hood is lined with silk, as better adapted
than satin for folding. The rumble is covered with crimson
leather. It is to be observed that with the exception of the
pine and mahogany used for the panels, English-grown wood and
English-made materials only have been used throughout.

“While less ornate than the wonderful ‘gold coach’ designed
by Sir William Chambers and Cipriani in 1761, the new state
landau, in its build, proportions, and adornment, is probably
the most graceful and regal vehicle ever built.”

(_From a Photograph_)]

Other English state carriages hardly less successfully designed have been made for the Lord Mayor of London (1887), for Sir Marcus Samuel, when holding that position in 1902-3, for the Sheriffs, and for various Indian Princes.

Coming to less pretentious vehicles, we may briefly consider in the first place the coach proper. At the time of Queen Victoria’s Coronation, coaches of the old pattern were, of course, still being constructed. There is in possession of Messrs. Holland and Holland a mail-coach built by Waude, one of the best-known coachbuilders of that time, which is typical of the period. This, says Mr. Charles Harper,

“is substantially and in general lines as built in 1830.
The wheels have been renewed, the hind boot has a door at
the back, and the interior has been relined; but otherwise
it is the coach that ran when William IV was King. It is a
characteristic Waude coach, low-hung, and built with straight
sides, instead of the bowed-out type common to the productions
of Vidler’s factory. It wears, in consequence, a more elegant
appearance than most coaches of that time; but it must be
confessed that what it gained in the eyes of the passers-by
it must have lost in the estimation of the insides, for the
interior is not a little cramped by those straight sides. The
guard’s seat on the ‘dickey’—or what in earlier times was
more generally known as the ‘backgammon-board’—remains, but
his sheepskin or tiger-skin covering, to protect his legs
from the cold, is gone. The trap-door into the hind boot can
be seen. Through this the mails were thrust and the guard sat
throughout the journey with his feet on it. Immediately in
front of him were the spare bars, while above, in the still
remaining case, reposed the indispensable blunderbuss. The
original lamps in their reversible cases remain. There were
four of them—one on either forequarter, and one on either
side of the fore boot, while a smaller one hung from beneath
the footboard, just above the wheelers. The guard had a
small hand lamp of his own to aid him in sorting his small
parcels. The door panels have apparently been repainted since
the old days, for although they still keep the maroon colour
characteristic of the mail-coaches, the Royal Arms are gone,
and in their stead appears the script monogram in gold, V.R.”

It is the coach which of all vehicles has least changed its appearance in the last hundred years. The drag of to-day and the old coach just described differ from one another only in a few minor details of construction. The reason for this is not far to seek. “The brief ‘Golden Age,’” says Sir Walter Gilbey, “of fast coaching saw the vehicle, of which such hard and continuous work was required, brought as near perfection as human ingenuity and craftsmanship was capable of bringing it. No effort was spared to make the mail or road-coach the best possible conveyance of its kind, and in retaining the model of a former age the modern coachbuilder confesses his inability to improve upon the handiwork of his progenitors.”

It is curious to note, by the way, that for a short time such coaches were hardly made at all, and the Report on the carriages shown at the London Exhibition of 1862 speaks of the “revival of an almost obsolete carriage, the four-in-hand coach, which had taken place within a few years.” This was undoubtedly due to the founding in 1856 of the Four-in-Hand Driving Club.

Nor was this revival confined to England. In the official _Reports upon Carriages_ at the Paris Exhibition of 1878, Mr. G. F. Budd draws attention to the fact that “the French have closely adhered to the English styles in the general design and shape of the bodies of their vehicles, especially in broughams ... landaus ... and drags. In the latter description of carriage, which has become so popular during the last few years, though it is peculiarly an English carriage, the style has been closely followed, and with such considerable success, that the French builders now appear as our formidable rivals in this branch of the manufacture.” “A novelty,” he continues, “in the design ... consists in the roof being so constructed as to admit of being opened in the centre ... a cover is placed on the top of the two portions of the head thus opened, and so forms, to all appearance, an ordinary luncheon-case with the ends open: it thus serves the purpose of a table when required ... and affords an increase of ventilation to those riding inside the vehicle.” Similarly in America drags began to be built after the establishment of a driving club. These are identical with the English models.

With regard to the other four-wheeled carriages, we have now arrived at a period when it is almost impossible to speak at any length of each particular kind.[56] For in the first place such a classification as I have used to describe the older vehicles must to a large extent break down, and in the second place, from the time when the great exhibitions did so much to make the manufacturers of all nations familiar with each other’s work, nearly every coachbuilder of standing has produced one model, if not more, peculiar to itself. So, in the middle of last century, you had carriages which approximated to the barouche, yet which had been evolved indirectly from so different a vehicle as the phaeton. You saw carriages, obviously dissimilar in appearance, yet bearing, to the layman, the same name. You had new combinations of perches and springs. And carriages were being exported from one country to be improved upon the lines most suitable to the roads and tastes of another.

Of all these carriages perhaps the two which deserve most mention are the _landau_ and the _victoria_, both open carriages, which can be closed at will.

The _landau_, as I have said, had originally been a coach made to open. At the beginning of the century it had hardly been so popular as the _landaulet_, but at this time it underwent several improvements at the hands of Mr. Luke Hopkinson, a celebrated coachbuilder of Holborn. It was Hopkinson who first built what was known as a _briska-landau_, but he chiefly concerned himself not so much with the shape of the carriage-body as with the hood. He built his new landaus in such a way as to allow the hood to be folded, so that it lay horizontally at the back of the seat. At the same time the floor and the seats were raised so as to make the whole carriage a far more spacious and comfortable vehicle than had been possible when the hood could not be completely opened.[57] And with the hood entirely “down” you had practically the landau of to-day, possibly the commonest carriage on the road. Nearly every “fly” which so often is to be seen standing rather forlornly outside the village station as your train thunders past is a landau modelled on Hopkinson’s designs. He was not, however, the only coachbuilder whose attention was being given to this useful carriage. Of one of the new landaus built by other firms a trade journal of the day observed with some truth that “its graceful outline and roominess” made it “the very beau-ideal of vehicular luxury.” And as the years passed the landau in its several varieties increased in popularity. Improvements tended almost solely in the direction of lightness. The Report on the carriages at the exhibition of 1862 pays particular attention to the landau. “The demand for them,” it runs, “has ... increased. They are well suited to the variable climate of the British Isles, as they can readily be changed from an open to a closed carriage and vice versa.” At a later exhibition—in 1885—the landau[58] had become so popular that there was actually shown one, built for the Earl of Sefton, suited to the capabilities of a single horse. This was an important departure from tradition which seems to have shocked some of the old-fashioned designers. “That an established house with an aristocratic connection,” lamented one trade paper at the time, “should exhibit a landau for one horse would have been considered incredible twenty years ago.” No doubt this was true, but people persisted in their desire for light carriages, and a one-horse landau was the natural outcome. At a later date there was a tendency to alter the shape of the body. Hitherto this had generally been angular; now the lines became curving, the body, looked at from the side, forming the arc of a huge circle. Such a carriage was known as the _canoe landau_. To-day the canoe bodies, both in England and abroad, are made rather deeper than at the time of their introduction, but the square shape still persists. If there is one English vehicle which may be called the favourite carriage it is surely the landau.

(_From a Drawing by Lowes Dickinson, 1835_)]

The earlier history of the _victoria_, the landau’s chief rival, is rather obscure. As I have mentioned, the once popular _cab-phaeton_ was still to be seen in the ’forties in many continental cities as the _milord_, which from a most aristocratic vehicle had descended into the realms of hackdom. An English coachbuilder, however, Mr. J. C. Cooper, saw possibilities in such a vehicle and prepared a series of designs. His drawings were scornfully treated in England, but “found favour in the eyes of his continental clients,” who about 1845 constructed from them a four-wheeled cabriolet with seats for two. This small open carriage was copied in more than one place, particularly, it would seem, in Paris and Vienna. Whether these copies were still called _milords_ I am not sure, but in 1856 they seem to have been described as _victorias_. In the meantime the pony phaeton had become popular in England, and in 1851 a new model designed for Her Majesty was, according to Stratton, also called a victoria.