Horse car

“ The driver of the motor should then talk soothingly to the horse, and the groom should also encourage it as much as possible. The horse will follow with his eyes the movements of the car, and, as a rule, in a little while will allow it to be driven close by without any further signs of fear. The horse should then be harnessed and taken out on the road, the motor-car driven out to meet it, and sent a number of times past it until the animal takes little or no notice. ”

“ The car, he saw with the experienced eye of a connoisseur, was a recent model of one of the most expensive and popular foreign makes: built on lines that promised a deal in the way of speed, and furnished with engines that were pregnant with multiplied horse-power: all in all not the style of car one would expect to find controlled by a solitary woman, especially after ten of a summer's night. ”

“ Until the horse is accustomed to the machine, it is the duty—by law and common sense—of the automobile driver to take great care in passing; the care being measured by the possibility and probability of at accident.
The sympathy of every chauffeur must be entirely with the driver of the horse. Automobiles are not so numerous in this country that they may be looked for at every turn, and one cannot but feel for the man or woman who, while driving, sees one coming down the road. The best of drivers feel panicky, while women and children are terror-stricken. ”

“ Yet that is what many people are expecting, forgetful of the fact that a motor-car is a horse and carriage in one, that its stable bill is of the smallest, that it ceases to consume oil or spirit immediately it is at rest, and that although its tyre bill, and accounts for occasional repairs, may be high, it is not subject to half the troubles that worry the owner of even the best-conducted horse stables. ”

“ Altogether the motorcar must revolutionise our social life in the country, and let us hope before long will lead to the bettering of our cross-country roads. The horse, poor beast, has never been able to tell us what he endures from bad roads, and the pace of a horsedrawn vehicle has been too slow for even the springs to suffer much; but if you get into a motor-car going five-and-twenty miles an hour over a road which you have hitherto deemed good, the engine and car will very soon tell you the difference between what the road surveyor's work has been and what it ought to be. ”

“ It was thus that the earlier motor-cars were greatly under-powered. The average man imagined that a one-horse engine was equal to one horse, that therefore a six-horse was equal to six horses, and that a carriage propelled by six horses was good enough for anyone. ”

“ They are grown-up baby perambulators upon two wheels; the driver sitting up behind, where the handle would be, and drawing the reins of interminable length over the top of the vehicle. Picture it in your mind, and then wonder, as I did, what power of attraction keeps the horse upon the ground; what prevents his flying into the air when the driver settles down into his seat. A pair of low, folding doors take the place of a lap robe; you dash through the street at an alarming rate without any visible guide, experiencing all the delights of a runaway without any of its dangers. ”

“ Universal use of the automobile in all its actual and possible forms and for all practical purposes in the world’s work and pleasure is to relieve the horse from his onerous service and give him a life of ease “and a perpetual feast of nectared sweets.” ”

“ A small jaunting-car, like the one which had passed the children, has two wheels, and seats long enough to hold four people, two on each side. The driver's place is built out in front, reaching over the horse's back. Such a car is very light, and one horse can carry it easily. ”

“ The competitors that drove the horse from its field of labor were the electric and compressed air horseless vehicles. As early as 1899 the horseless carriage was rapidly striding into popularity. In 1920 they were common sights everywhere. In 1950 they had crowded the horse to the wall and in 1999 horseless vehicles for business or pleasure were exclusively employed everywhere. ”

“ It is not probable that man will ever be able to get along without the horse, but the release of the noble animal from the bondage of city traffic, which was begun only a few years ago with mechanical street car propulsion, promises now to be extensively advanced by the substitution of the motor carriage and the auto-truck for team-drawn vehicles. ”

“ At the present time probably not one per cent, of the owners of motor-cars have a suitable coach-house for this new class of vehicle. They are generally placed in sheds or outbuildings, more often damp than dry, or in coach-houses built for horse-drawn carriages. Few recognise that the motor-car is a far more delicate article than the horse-drawn carriage, most people having grown up in the common belief that anything to do with machinery is strong, and will bear knocking about. ”

“ Springfield Mechanics Devise a New Mode of Travel.
Ingenious Wagon Now Being Made in This City for Which the Makers Claim Great Things.
A new motor carriage, which, if the preliminary tests prove successful as is expected, will revolutionize the mode of travel on highways, and do away with the horse as a means of transportation, is being made in this city. It is quite probable that within a short time one may be able to see an ordinary carriage in almost every respect, running along the streets or climbing country hills without visible means of propulsion. ”

“ The substitution of the motor-car for the horse was beneficial in various ways. In the first place the car is much more speedy and more comfortable for transport. With a motor-car a physi- cian, for instance, can extend his practice over a much wider territory; contractors can oversee more thoroughly a number of projects under way at the same time; stores and factories can deliver goods in the country, at distances of 30 m. or more, in their own vehicles, whereas with horses their delivery territory was limited to the city. ”

“ It must be kept in mind, too, in analyzing the causes of the automobile's amazing expansion, that it is the first real improvement in individual transportation since the chariot rattled around the Roman arena. The horse had his century-old day, but when the motor came man traded him for a gas-engine. ”

“ A good many people interested in motor-car matters are prone to the assumption that the motor-car question is a very simple one. To the horror of a good many of my enthusiastic friends I have always been bold enough to make two statements, first, that in unskilled hands the motor-car is very dangerous to its owner, its passengers, and others; and secondly, that the motor-car is as complicated as the horse. ”

“ From the point of speed they are very superior to the horsed vehicle, and statistics show that they are also less costly to run in proportion to the fares carried, while passengers will unanimously acknowledge their greater comfort. To change from the ancient, rattling two-horse conveyance, which jolts us on rough roads, and occasionally sends a thrill up the spine when the brakes are applied, to the roomy steam- or petrol-driven bus, which overtakes and threads its way through the slower traffic, is a pleasant experience. ”

“ The rope was soon fast to the wagon and backed-up auto.
"Go ahead slowly," cautioned Will. "We don't know what will give way first, the horse or the wagon. Take it easy, Mollie."
Slowly the auto started. There came a strain on the rope. There was a creaking to the old vehicle, and then it slowly began to emerge from the mud. The old horse, who had almost gone to sleep, roused up at this strange activity, and was literally forced to stir out of his tracks. In a few seconds the wagon was on the firm road, the auto having pulled it in a diagonal direction from the mud-hole. ”

“ The man in charge of the beast naturally leads the horse on his right-hand side. A motor-car comes in sight. The animal grows more restive than usual, and the unfortunate man is most likely to find himself in the disagreeable position of being jammed between the road fence and the horse. ”

“ By far the greatest proportion of motor driven vehicles bought in the country are now passenger vehicles. When the farmer wakes up to the economic superiority of the motor truck and motor tractor over the horse, the sales of other forms than passenger cars in the country will scarcely have any bounds. ”

“ The difficulty which has presented itself has been how horse-owners may obtain opportunities of training their horses to meet motor vehicles. The Automobile Club has already given demonstrations at the Ranelagh and other clubs near London of how horses may best be made tractable, and has advertised these opportunities. If any owner of restive horses will apply to the secretary of the Automobile Club, that gentleman will doubtless be able to arrange that some motorist in the neighbourhood will drive his car to the horse-owner's establishment and there train the restive animals. ”

“ All these varied and ever-extending uses to which motor-vehicles are being put would seem almost to foreshadow the time when the horse is likely to be found only at the Zoological Gardens, as a curious survival of a bygone age in traction.
Definite statistics as to the extent to which automobilism, in its manifold phases, constitutes an industry in itself are not available; but the activities now employed on or in connection with motors, motoring, and motor transport are manifold and widespread. ”

“ The possibilities of similar economy by the farmer in the substitution of motor power for horse power have been indicated by many progressive farmers who have by experiments demonstrated that the cost of hauling and cultivating with motor wagons and machinery is less than by using horses, but the general economic saving by the use of the motor vehicle in hauling cannot get its fullest and conclusive demonstration until better roads are more numerous. ”

“ It was beginning to get dark when I reached the car. I was just ready to turn the crank when I heard some one say: “Get up Billy.” I looked up and found a pretty girl in a falling top was trying to make her horse pass the machine. He was frightened and wouldn’t go and the girl seemed to be frightened too.
It was the law in those days that when a person driving a horse met an auto and held up a hand, the auto driver must drive to the side of the road, stop his car and lead the horse past the machine. ”

“ No one expects the automobile to replace the horse on the farm. But for work that the horse can not do efficiently—such as the quick transit of milk, butter, and garden products to the markets—the motor-car has a future of wide utility. ”

“ With their advantages of greater speed and carrying capacity over the horsed vehicles, their introduction was a most important development, though their working at first imposed a severe financial strain on many companies.
Cabs.—The horse-drawn cabs which ply for hire in the streets, or wait at authorized “cab-stands,” are of two kinds, the “hansom,” a two-wheeled vehicle so named after its inventor (1834) and the “four-wheeler.” “Hackney coaches” for hire are first mentioned in 1625, when they were kept at inns, and numbered 20. ”

“ The drivers ride the left-wheel horse, with reins to the other two pair; they seldom walk, and when they do, they always mount should a bad piece of road, or a difficult log-bridge come in their way, as they can see to guide their horses much better than when on foot. A trough is screwed behind the waggon, containing a small mattress, a blanket or two rolled up, and a water-pail. ”

“ The city is the place for these horses. And year by year the heavy hauling will more and more be done by auto-cars. The auto-car for trucking is at present probably the most satisfactory achievement of the designers of horseless vehicles. ”

“ After wrestling with an unusually notional beast, to the great disorder of clothing and temper, the Professor said,—
"The brain of the horse is small; it is an animal of little sense and great timidity, but it knows more than most people who attempt to drive."
In reality horses are seldom driven; they generally go as they please, with now and then a hint as to which corner to turn. Nine times out of ten it is the driven horse that makes trouble for owners of automobiles. ”

“ The guide, who sits in front, keeps the vehicle in its proper course, by means of the pilot-wheels acting upon the pole, like the handle of a garden-chair.
The weight of the carriage and its apparatus is estimated at 1-1/2 tons, and its wear and tear of the road, as compared with a carriage drawn by four horses, is as one to six. When the carriage is in progress the machinery is not heard, nor is there so much vibration as in an ordinary vehicle, from the superior solidity of the structure. The engine has a twelve-horse power, but may be increased to sixteen ”

“ We continued to toil upwards with little space to spare between the narrow car’s wheels and the precipice which hangs over the roaring Arve: an inadvertent driver or unruly horse would ensure destruction, but there is little danger of either. ”

“ It also does the work of the steam car and carries passengers long distances from city to city.
FIG. 6.—A HORSELESS CARRIAGE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
FIG. 7.—THE FIRST AUTOMOBILE.
FIG. 8.—GOOD-BY TO THE HORSE.
A late development in carriage making is seen in the automobile. As far back as the sixteenth century a horseless carriage was invented (Fig. 6) and was operated on the streets of a German city. But here the power was furnished by human muscle. The first real automobile (Fig. 7) was invented in [162] 1801, by the man who invented the first successful locomotive. ”