In the manufacture of harness we have arrived at a degree of
perfection, to which the invention of the patent shining leather has
mainly contributed. A handsome horse well harnessed is a noble sight;
yet in no country, except England, is the art of putting a horse into
harness at all understood. If, however, our road horses were put to
their coaches in the loose awkward fashion of the continental people,
we could not travel at the rate we do. It is the command given over the
coach-horse that enables us to do it.
In regard to mails, it should be observed that the proprietors who
horse them are not sufficiently attentive to the state of the harness
on the ground worked by night; whereas it should in reality be the
best. If anything break by daylight, it is instantly observed; but it
is not so in the night, as lamp-light is uncertain and treacherous.
In speaking of particulars, it may be observed, that bearing-reins
are a relief to the arm of the driver, but by no means to the horses.
Indeed, they materially lessen the power of horses in drawing, become
insufferable to them in a long journey, and fatigue them much sooner
than they would otherwise be. Not only do these reins by no means serve
to keep horses up; but they prevent their rising after having fallen.
When a wheel-horse has the habit of throwing up his head, which greatly
annoys the mouth of the leader before him, a nose-martingale should
be used. This, however, is rarely sufficient. Indeed, it is a bad
custom to run the leader’s reins through terrets over the heads of the
wheelers; for then every movement which the wheelers make with their
heads, acts powerfully on the mouths of the leaders, whether they be
good or bad. If the former, it is sometimes attended with danger: thus,
a wheeler throws up his head, suddenly and powerfully shortens the rein
of the leader, who is checked, and as the wheeler goes on, he brings
the bar with force against the hocks of the leader, which instantly
flies forward, and mischief ensues.
This, perhaps, does not last long; but one evil only takes the place
of another: leaders soon learn to be, from custom, equally heedless of
this check and of their driver’s hand: and their mouths become steeled
by the constant tossing of the wheeler’s heads. It is thus that we
sometimes hear of leaders choosing their own road in spite of the best
efforts of good coachmen; and so it will always be till terrets are
totally abolished. This may easily be done by conducting the leader’s
rein through the rosette in which the wheeler’s outside bearing-rein,
of which we have just disapproved, at present passes, and thus
supersede the terret.
Terrets, however, are supposed to look well, and to have the advantage
of keeping the head steady. To obviate their disadvantages, therefore,
in some measure, rollers are placed in the bottom of each terret,
over which the rein passes. This, in some degree, obviates the evil,
as the rein no longer holds in the terret, but slides easily, giving
the wheeler’s head more freedom. In all kinds of work, a tool-box
is a necessary appendage to the coach. It should contain a strong
screw-wrench, wheel and spring clips, a spring shackle or two, with
bolts and nuts, and two chains--one for a trace, and the other shorter,
with a ring at one end and hook at the other, in case of a tug giving
way. In his pocket the coachman should have a short strap with a buckle
at each end, as in case of almost any part of the reins, or indeed most
parts of the harness breaking, it comes into use in a moment.
The following are interesting extracts on this subject, from an article
in a late number of the _Quarterly Review_; and the work quoted and
referred to in the article is intitled Bubbles from the Brunnens of
Nassau. “With regard to the management of horses in harness, perhaps
the most striking feature to English eyes is, that the Germans intrust
these sensible animals with the free use of their eyes. ‘As soon as,
getting tired, or, as we are often apt to term it, lazy, they see the
postilion threaten them with his whip, they know perfectly well the
limits of his patience, and that after eight, ten, or twelve threats,
there will come a blow. As they travel along, one eye is always
shrewdly watching the driver; the moment he begins his slow operation
of lighting his pipe, they immediately slacken their pace, knowing as
well as Archimedes could have proved, that he cannot strike fire and
them at the same time: every movement in the carriage they remark; and
to any accurate observer who meets a German vehicle, it must often
be perfectly evident that the poor horses know and feel, even better
than himself, that they are drawing a coachman, three bulky baronesses,
their man and their maid, and that to do this on a hot summer’s day is
no joke.’
“Now, what is our method? ‘In order to break-in the animal to draught,
we put a collar round his neck, a crupper under his tail, a pad on his
back, a strap round his belly, with traces at his sides; and, lest
he should see that, though these things tickle and pinch, they have
not power to do more, the poor intelligent creature is blinded with
blinkers, and in this fearful state of ignorance, with a groom or two
at his head, and another at his side, he is, without his knowledge,
fixed to the pole and splinter-bar of a carriage. If he kick, even
at a fly, he suddenly receives a heavy punishment which he does not
comprehend; something has struck him, and has hurt him severely; but,
as fear magnifies all danger, so, for aught we know or care, he may
fancy that the splinter-bar which has cut him is some hostile animal,
and expects, when the pole bumps against his legs, to be again assailed
in that direction. Admitting that in time he gets accustomed to these
phenomena--becoming, what we term, steady in harness, still, to the
last hour of his existence, he does not clearly understand what it is
that is hampering him, or what is that rattling noise which is always
at his heels;--the sudden sting of the whip is a pain with which he
gets but too well acquainted, yet the _unde derivatur_ of the sensation
he cannot explain--he neither knows when it is coming, nor what it
comes from. If any trifling accident or even irregularity occurs--if
any little harmless strap which ought to rest upon his back happens to
fall to his side, the unfortunate animal, deprived of his eyesight, the
natural lanterns of the mind, is instantly alarmed; and, though from
constant heavy draught he may literally, without metaphor, be on his
last legs, yet if his blinkers should happen to fall off, the sight
of his own dozing master, of his own pretty mistress, and of his own
fine yellow chariot in motion, would scare him so dreadfully, that off
he would probably start, and the more they all pursued him the faster
would he fly!’”
[Illustration: _PLATE XLIII_
_Page 189._