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HORSES AND ROADS.

thews and sinews should endure the burden, or whether this shall be imposed upon inanimate metal? Reducing the matter to £ s. d., which is cheaper? Fact pronounces “iron” to be the answer.’ Thus much for springs, upon which nothing more is necessary than to give full and hearty assent to Mayhew’s opinion.

But there is another subject connected with carts, waggons, and all other vehicles upon which Mayhew has not touched, but which may be here introduced. Those who have been on the Continent may (or may not, according to the use they made of their eyes) have remarked that all vehicles, whether two-wheeled or four-wheeled, are fitted with brakes, which not only serve for down-hill work,but are also applied when horses run away, or when they are left to stand. It will be said that our four-wheeled heavy waggons are fitted with a chain, or a skid. Granted; but these cannot be put to various uses with the same celerity and utility that a proper brake can; in fact, in the case of runaway horses, they are of no use at all. Even in the other cases they are far behind the brake, as they necessitate a stoppage of the team to apply them, and another to remove them. They mostly stop only one wheel; which wheel, in the case of the chain, is exposed to injury by having the tire worn into facets at the corresponding distances from whatever spoke the chain may be put against, while the spoke sometimes breaks; the violent jerk thrown on the next spoke carrying away that one also, as well as