Cart (vehicle)

“ Is it any wonder, then, that, after all these difficulties, no complaint is made against the rickety, slat-seated carts, with wheels that seem to bar the entrance of the passenger; against the sorry-looking quilez,—that attenuated two-wheeled ’bus, where the four passengers must sit with interwoven legs, getting the more implicated as the cart goes bounding on? No; the Americans are glad enough to ride in almost any kind of vehicle. ”

“ The cart itself is very trim and smart, with a framework sort of head, which falls back at pleasure, and it holds four people easily. It is a capital vehicle, light and strong and uncommonly comfortable, but I am warned not to imagine that all Cape carts are as easy as this one. Away we go at a fine pace through the delicious sparkling morning sunshine and crisp air, soon turning off the red high-road into a sandy, marshy flat with a sort of brackish back-water standing in pools here and there. ”

“ Thus the wheels and axle revolved together below the cart or truck, and were retained in their position by strong wooden pins like the thole-pins or rowlocks of a boat. The wheels and axle revolve together in tramway cars and in railway carriages. Carts are made in this way now in Portugal, Spain, and in South America. All the earlier carts seem to have been fitted only with a pole, and at least two animals seem always to have been yoked together to the vehicle. The objection to the wheels and axle in one piece is, that it is difficult to turn a vehicle thus fitted in a small space. ”

“ For road work, and particularly for country driving, a tandem cart is not only correct, but is a more practical and suitable vehicle than a gig, particularly with large horses. The driver is well up above the horses, which gives far better control; she is able to see well ahead of the leader, and there is also the advantage of being out of the dust and in a position where one can better see other vehicles, both in meeting and passing them. Whatever kind of vehicle is used, the tugs should be so adjusted that the vehicle is in balance when the shafts are in position. ”

“ A two-wheeled vehicle, usually without top or springs, designed, in most cases, to carry heavy loads and to be drawn by one horse. The cart is doubtless the oldest, as it is the simplest, form of carriage. ”

“ This type of vehicle is also known as a Slat-side Phaeton and is described by Francis C. Underhill (Driving for Pleasure) as a modification of a vehicle used on the other side of the water in a lighter construction. It is intended for private use in the country with a team or a pair and would have been found among the vehicles in the coach barn of a connoisseur of carriages. The body work on the shooting cart is similar to that found on the four-wheel dog cart.
This cart was built in 1894 for Dr. Webb by Brewster and Company of New York. ”

“ Our vehicle is simply a wooden tray on wheels, with a bag of hay in it, on which we do our best to recline, while our driver perches himself on the edge of the cart, thereby doubtless realizing vividly the sensation of rowing hard in a pair of thin unmentionables. ”

“ The cart having only two wheels, the pole is supported by a chain fastened to a longitudinal bar across the backs of the animals, after the manner of an old-fashioned curricle, this method of harnessing causing a lurching, bumping motion, sometimes amounting to a perfect series of jumps when passing over a rough bit of ground, the occupants of the vehicle holding on by the rails to maintain their seats, from which, however, they are perpetually being jerked. ”

“ Time and the grinding wheels of heavy-laden carts, however, have worn innumerable ruts seven or eight inches deep into the solid stone, so that in passing over it a springless cart crashes from side to side with great violence, almost throwing shaft animals to the ground and rendering it quite impossible for any European to ride in the vehicle, while crockery or any other fragile article, however carefully packed, is doomed to certain destruction. ”

“ Numerous varieties exist. In the tandem cart, as generally constructed, the driver’s seat is high—the only cart, indeed, of the kind to maintain any height at all. In the Ralli cart two seats are placed back to back, the foot-rest to the latter closing on the279 body when required. (Built somewhat on the lines of the ralli, by the way, is the Indian tonga, “a rather low, hooded vehicle ... furnished for draught by a pair of ponies on the curricle principle with pole and bar.”) The Battlesden, Bedford, and Malvern carts are other varieties. ”

“ George, our minds filled with classical reminiscences, which fortified us to endure the horrible bumping of our pereclatnoi. This vehicle is a sort of low four-wheeled cart, so narrow as barely to accommodate two persons, who have nothing to sit on but boxes and packages laid on a great heap of hay. It is no easy matter to keep one's balance on such a seat, especially when the frail equipage is galloped along from post to post at the full speed of three stout horses. ”

“ This cart, pulled by men, was known as the jumper—a name widely used among early volunteer firemen and so applied because, when the puffing and blowing enthusiasts drew the cart after them, by means of ropes, the two-wheeled vehicle jumped from point to point along the uneven surface of the road. ”

“ They present an unyielding obstacle to any vehicle, and the wheels of even a heavily laden cart make no impression on them, but they are not unlikely to cause the overturning of that cart, and even traction engines suffer from the sudden drop caused by these gigantic sugar-loaves. ”

“ The oxen do not wear yokes, but the pole of the cart is fastened to a bar of tough wood, usually lignum vitæ, which is lashed by cowhide thongs to the horns. There are always two pair of oxen—one to haul the cart and the other to haul the load, for the vehicle is twice the weight of its cargo. ”

“ The country carts, in which they transport their produce from the interior, deserve notice. They are the most awkward, heavy and singular vehicles ever seen; and one of them passing through our streets, would attract as much notice as a moving menagerie. The cart is, in fact, about the height of a two story house, the sides and roof formed of flags and cane, but the bottom of hard and solid wood, which, with the wheels, are monstrously clumsy. ”

“ Vehicles, going and returning, were thus enabled to pursue different routes, except at particular places where the nature of the ground would only admit of one road: when a cart came to the entrance of such a defile, the driver hallooed out, to stop any that might interfere with him from the opposite side, no part being sufficiently wide for two carts to pass. ”

“ There are also numerous other types of two-wheeled carts known as road-carts, which, while not possessing a high degree of comfort, are useful and convenient and are easy on the horse. Certain of these are specially designed for breaking colts and others for exercising trotting horses. ”

“ One man squats inside, a second helps to push it from behind. A most interesting illustration in the Louterell Psalter—a fourteenth-century manuscript—shows a reaper’s cart going uphill. Here the two huge, six-spoked wheels with their projecting nails are clearly shown. The platform of the cart is strengthened by upright stakes with a cross-rail connecting them at the sides. The driver, standing over the wheels on the poles, is holding a long whip which is flicking the leader of three horses. Three other men are helping at the rear, and the stacks of wheat are held in position by ropes. ”

“ If a cart be loading or unloading in the street, it is permitted to take and keep a position the most inconvenient, in utter disregard of any danger or delay which it may and must occasion to the carriages and foot-passengers who have to travel round it. ”

“ It is a good plan at this stage to lead the horse about by the rope halter, with a man on each side ready to assist, while the driver walks with the reins in his hand on the off side of the cart. He can thus guide him without getting up, while the weight which the horse has to pull to begin with is materially reduced.
|When quiet get up into cart.| If he goes along all right, mount into the cart and drive him about, keeping a man running alongside for a little, when, if he continues to go well, the man can jump up behind. ”

“ For both passenger and freight traffic, pack animals or rude vehicles are the chief reliance. For passengers there are also the palanquin or sedan-chair and the mule-litter. Where the country is not too rough, the two-wheeled cart is the usual conveyance for merchandise.
Fig. 28. Coolies carrying Freight along a Mountain Trail which has been partly washed out by a turbulent stream. Over the mountain passes, however, and in many of the smaller valleys, roads are so narrow that carts can not be used, and so here pack animals, particularly horses and mules, are substituted. ”

“ The harness falls into place obedient to the touch of the driver, who, with the rest of the men, has glided from the floor above, and has already swung himself to his seat. Two others clasp the chains to the collars; and in another instant each stands ready to mount to his place in the cart the moment the word is given to start. Glancing at our watches, we see that the whole time since the first stroke of the gong is exactly eight seconds—an almost incredible illustration of what can be done by perfect organisation and careful drilling. ”

“ The perch or coupling-pole should be shifting or movable, as, in the event of the loss of a wheel, an axle, or other accident rendering it necessary to abandon the wagon, a temporary cart may be constructed out of the remaining portion. ”

“ Such material is usually carried upon a road in wheelbarrows or dump carts, and then spread in even layers with rakes, but the latest and best device for this purpose is a spreading cart.
If a roller cannot be had, the road is thrown open to traffic until it becomes fairly well consolidated; but it is impossible properly to consolidate materials by the movement of vehicles over the road, and if this means is pursued constant watchfulness is necessary to prevent unequal wear and to keep the surface smooth and free from ruts. ”

“ We who contemplate making the trip ensconced in the upholstered comfort of a machine rolling on air-filled tires, will, perhaps, be less petulant of some strip of roughened macadam, less bewildered by the characteristic windings, if we recall something of the first back-breaking cart that—not so very long ago—crashed over the stony road, and toilsomely worked its way from devious lane to lane. ”

“ In 1661 the restrictions on cart traffic were modified by Charles II.’s Proclamation, which permitted carts and waggons with four wheels, and drawn by ten or more horses, to carry sixty or seventy hundredweight, and forbade more than five horses to be harnessed to any four-wheeled cart unless the team went in pairs. ”

“ As they have no tires, and the section of the wheel part or crowd together, according to the moisture, a train of these carts bringing in the products of the hunt is a strange sight. Each cart has its own peculiar creak, hoarse and grating, and waggles its own individual waggle, graceless and shaky, on the uneven ground. ”

“ The “American woman,” as foreign residents facetiously translate the word, is a two-wheeled cart with a plain open box on top, on a corner of which sits the driver, apparently wholly inured to the jouncing with every step of the horse and every unevenness of the road which the passenger or two beside him seldom gives evidence of enjoying. ”

“ He had, however, got a pull on the beasts, and they were slackening a little, but, as ill-luck would have it, on going down a gully one of the wheels caught a tree root, and in a jiffy capsized the cart, sending the driver head over heels into a clump of bracken.
The incident gave fresh impetus to the runaways, who rushed on baaing; dashing at length down the steep incline of the creek, the cart righted itself as it tumbled adown the gradient. They tore over the stream and up the bank, finally leaving the track, and getting boxed up in the scrub. ”

“ Goods not conveyed by water carriage, are usually carried [Vol I Pg 219] on the backs of oxen or horses, or on the shoulders of men and women, carts not being generally used, except in the western districts, where the population is thin, or in some of the more eastern districts, particularly those recently under Chinese direction. The cart of the western districts, termed pedáti, is of clumsy construction, running on two large solid wheels, from five to six feet in diameter, and from one to two inches broad, on a revolving axle, and drawn by two buffaloes. ”

“ To travel in a cart seemed to me so humble a mode of progression, that it really did not matter very much whether it were broken or not, indeed a broken cart seemed more to me like going the whole hog, and roughing it thoroughly while we were about it. But with the men it was different, a cart was a most dignified mode of conveyance, and to enter a big town in a broken one was as bad as travelling in a motor with all the evidences of a breakdown upon it, due to careless driving. ”

“ Other carts have sides made by stakes driven into the side beams; the wheels are sometimes of solid wood, or even of stone. Wheels are also made by a plank with rounded ends, and two felloes fitted on to complete the circle. Again, wheels are made like ours, and also with six or eight spokes, which are placed in pairs, each pair close to and parallel with one another.
If a carriage for the rich is required the underworks are like those of a cart, but the pole is carefully padded and ornamented with handsome cloths or velvet; the ”