"_I put a spoke in his wheel_" (Vol. viii., pp. 464. 522. 576.).--This
phrase must have had its origin in the days in which the vehicles used in
this country had wheels of solid wood without spokes. Wheels so constructed
I have seen in the west of England, in Ireland, and in France. A recent
traveller in Moldo-Wallachia relates that the people of the country go from
place to place mounted on horses, buffaloes, or oxen; but among the Boyards
it is "fashionable" to make use of a vehicle which holds a position in the
scale of conveyances a little above a wheelbarrow and little below a
dung-cart. It is poised on four wheels of solid wood of two feet diameter,
which are more or less rounded by means of an axe. A vehicle used in the
cultivation of the land on the slopes of the skirts of Dartmoor in
Devonshire, has three wheels of solid wood; it resembles a huge
wheelbarrow, with two wheels behind, and one in front of it, and has two
long handles like the handles of a plough, projecting behind for the
purpose of guiding it. It is known as "the old three-wheeled But." As the
horse is attached to the vehicle by chains only, and he has no power to
hold it back when going down hill, the driver is provided with a piece of
wood, "a spoke," which is of the shape of the wooden pin used for rolling
paste, for the purpose of "dragging" the front wheel of the vehicle. This
he effects by thrusting the spoke into one of the three round holes made in
the solid wheel for that purpose. The operation of "putting a spoke in a
wheel by way of impediment" may be seen in daily use on the three-wheeled
carts used by railway navvies, and on the tram waggons with four wheels
used in collieries to convey coals from the pit's mouth.