Towing

“ The above cut shows how one man can easily tow alone. The light regulating string, B, passes from the stern of the boat to one hand of the person towing, T. The tow line, A, is attached a little in front of the center of the boat. ”

“ I am in the carriage next the engine, and as I lie full length in the darkened empty carriage I look out on snow-patched fields and hills, now partly obscured by wild volumes of vapour, now fierily illumined by the glow of the furnace, the black sky raining showers of red sparks on to the vague night landscape, the engine racing forward past signal-boxes and stations, clattering along the changing points of the rails of junctions, knowing apparently that all signals are for, never anticipating any hindrance, skirling and leaping in the exuberance of accomplishment. ”

“ Do you apply a second Carriage to your Engine for passengers, or do you carry them in the same Carriage?—The boiler is placed behind the Carriage; there is an engine-house between the boiler and the Carriage; the Engines are placed perpendicular between the passengers and the boiler, and the fore part of the vehicle is for the passengers, so that all the machinery is quite behind the Carriage, and the fore part of the Carriage entirely for the convenience of passengers. ”

“ A powerful engine, of the six-drive-wheel construction, is required to propel a very moderate load of passengers, and as it laboriously puffs along the grades, the forests echo and re-echo with the sound, while the traveler feels thankful that the iron horse, instead of flesh and blood, is being employed in his service. ”

“ He rides out on a triumphal car or great waggon, richly gilded all over, and of great height, covered by a splendid canopy, and drawn by sixteen horses, richly caparisoned. Behind the car walk twenty of his nobles or chief officers, each of whom holds the end of a rope, the other end being fastened to the car to keep it upright and prevent it from falling over. ”

“ Just as the carriage comes to a stop, the engineer or motorman, as we would call him, pulls his lever, thereby fastening the car to the ribbed side of the tube. At once a signal is given and the long, thin but strong rope descends to draw the carriage to the surface. ”

“ The car lumbered on, the cab half a block, often more, in the rear, through endless regions of small shops and offices huddled together above narrow sidewalks, through narrow and winding streets paved with cobblestones and jammed with cars and trucks, squeezing past curbs where dirty children sat playing within a few inches of death-dealing wheels. ”

“ The old stage wagons succeeding to the pack-horses, which carried goods and occasionally passengers stowed away, were a curiosity. A long-bodied wagon, with loose canvas tilt, wheels of great breadth, so as to be independent of ruts, except the very broadest; with a series of four or five iron tires or hoops round the feloes, and the whole drawn by eight or ten horses, two abreast with a driver riding on a pony with a long whip, which gave him command of the whole team! Average pace about 1 1/2 to 2 miles an hour, including stoppages, as taken from old time tallies, for their journeys! ”

“ As far as you have observed, is the injury done to the roads by the passing of the Carriage, greater or less than that by a Carriage drawn by horses?—I think, taking the horses into the account, the injury must be much less; the tire of the wheels is three and a half inches wide, whereas many of the Stage Coaches are as heavy as the Steam Carriage, and with narrower wheels; and I think it is only fair to take the weight of the horses into the account, which I have found to be from eight to ten hundred weight each horse, consequently, four horses would weigh from a ton and a half to two tons. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Why shouldn't a chauffeur be picked out from among his fellows to do credit to a fine, sixty-horse-power blue motor-car? Besides, a young man who can't look rather handsome in a chauffeur's cap and neat leather coat and leggings might as well go and hang himself. ”

“ A one-horse wagon—for nothing was buggy then, but neglected bedsteads—artistically bilious, and striped like a beetle, with a paneled box high before and behind, like an inverted chapeau, and a seat with a baluster back, softened and graced with a buffalo robe, warm in winter—and in summer also—was one of the wheeled wonders of my boyhood. No sitting in that wagon like a right-angled triangle—room in front for any possible length of leg, and a foot-stove withal—room behind for two or three handfuls of children, and a little hair-trunk with a bit of brass-nail alphabet on the cover. ”

“ To-day the shriek of the engine, the clang of the bell, and the clatter of the car-wheels form a ceaseless accompaniment to the cheerful hum of busy life which everywhere pervades the wilderness of thirty years ago. ”

“ Scene opens and discovers street-car driving furiously along, drawn by two chestnut acquaintances. Conductor and driver represented by two small boys. Car composed of lounge, clothes-horse, and two chairs, judiciously arranged and draped; wheels of band box-lids or circular tea-trays. Noise of car simulated by confederates outside shaking sleigh-bells or hand-bells, and drumming on door with fingers and hand; also rattling on floor with feet. [Pg 285]
Enter some passengers, running and hailing car. ”

“ If our wagons had been an inch or two nearer the outside corner of the road, or the man in the automobile a shade less skillful, he could not possibly have escaped. His automobile would have been smashed, and he would have gone over the edge of the precipice. ”

“ Give me a fair, honest, English-Yankee-American tow, above board, and above water too, if I must have a tow at all, and none of your sneaking drift that is below the surface, where one can neither see nor feel. ”

“ One evening a rainbow spanned an entire range of hills with its mighty arch, and from a black hub resting upon the hill-top in the exact centre, black rays diverged upward in perfect regularity to the rainbow's arch and created a very strongly defined and altogether the most majestic, magnificent and startling half-sunk wagon wheel you can imagine. ”

“ The most common carriage is the volante, but there are some carriages in the English style, with servants in livery on the box. I have taken a fancy for the strange-looking two-horse volante. The postilion, the long, dangling traces, the superfluousness of a horse to be ridden by the man that guides the other, and the prodigality of silver, give the whole a look of style that eclipses, the neat appropriate English equipage. The ladies ride in full dress, décolletées, without hats. The servants on the carriages are not all Negroes. Many of the drivers are white. ”

“ In an ordinary road is the impression of the wheel of a Stage Coach upon the solid surface of the road so great as to make the injury apparent every time the Carriage passes over it?—It is apparent to me, because wherever there is a mark upon the road there is a consequent injury. ”

“ Would your Carriage displace along the road four horses on each stage?—Two ten-horse Engines would displace the whole number of horses along the stage.
Have you made experiments which enable you to answer these questions?—I was not at all prepared; my principal object bas been to ascertain what power I have to do a certain work; I have paid very little attention to horse power.
Do you think that your Carriage is equivalent to a four-horse Carriage on the road, in the number of persons it would draw?—It is more than equivalent to it, from the circumstance of its being able to do more work. ”

“ The road was smooth; it led up and over and down a continual succession of hills; but it was narrow, the horses were used to it, and could not well get out of it anyhow; so why shouldn't the drivers entertain themselves and us? The noses of our horses projected sociably into the rear of the forward carriage, and as we toiled up the long hills our driver stood up and talked to his friend, and his friend stood up and talked back to him, with his rear to the scenery. ”

“ The turns are frequent and sharp; and the heavy, overladen vehicle, in its furious downward career, gives a swing at each, as if it would cut short the passage into Italy, and land the passenger, sooner than he wishes, at the bottom. At length, after four hours' riding, the descent is accomplished. The scene has changed in the twinkling of an eye. The plain is as level as a floor. ”

“ Every time the big wagon jolted over a stone—and it was jolt over stones all the time—it seemed as if it must topple over the side and roll to the bottom; and then the way the driver talked to the mules to keep them straight, and the creaking and scraping of the wagons, was enough to frighten the most courageous. ”

“ Thus the Carriage is preserved from injury, and the materials of the road are not broken: and in surmounting obstacles, instead of the whole Carriage with its load being lifted over, the springs allow the wheels to rise, while the weights suspended upon them are scarcely moved from their horizontal level. ”

“ Nor have other means of locomotion and communication been neglected. The horse-car has to a large extent taken the place of the omnibus and of the lumbering stage-coach; while vertical travelling, by means of the elevator, has become easy and luxurious in our day. ”

“ The bush through which they travelled did not interest him; a motor-car was, in his view, a means of moving swiftly through space, and to crawl along a mountain track at the pace of a bullock-waggon failed to appeal to him in the least. ”

“ On the pavement cabs and busses rattled past in endless succession; and elegant carriages, drawn swiftly by spirited horses and carrying the princes of trade and of birth, and veiled ladies, who might be actresses or countesses, for all one could tell, rolled smoothly along. ”

“ The automobile carriage is coming to take the place of the horse carriage. The steam plough is replacing the horse plough. The time seems approaching when the horse will cease to be seen in our streets, and may be relegated to the zoological garden. ”

“ Slowly and laboriously do the wheels of a heavy traveling carriage wind along the rugged ascent, while the heaving flanks and dilated nostrils of the noble steeds bear witness to the toilsome pathway. ”

“ Will you state more definitely the nature of the injury you have seen in regard to the effect of the horses' feet, in comparison to that of the wheels of Carriages?—First of all they displace at every blow, they tear up, and throw the surface behind them; whereas the wheel only rolls as it goes, and throws some portion on both sides of it, if the road is soft. ”

“ Ellie and I, already dressed for the occasion, seated ourselves in the volante, our escort mounted a horse, and we drove rapidly off. A volante, the most unique of vehicles, is a chaise-body swung low on leather braces between and a little in advance of two enormous wheels—the peculiar construction giving it a swinging motion seemingly independent of the propelling one, that makes the riding exceedingly easy and comfortable. One horse is harnessed between the very long shafts, and the other, the “near” horse, outside, hitched by stout traces to the body of the vehicle. ”

“ The air is full of the buoyant freshness of the hills, and one's thoughts turn to pine forests and rushing waters. Over the superb highway where in ancient days stately processions passed to and fro from Spain, our machine glides on with a sweeping, flying motion, until I find myself leaning over and looking for the wings which should project from the centre of each wheel,—winged wheels, surely. ”

“ Now this was a case in which you were given the result and had to find everything else for yourself. Now let me endeavour to show you the different steps in my reasoning. To begin at the beginning. I approached the house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely free from all impressions. I naturally began by examining the roadway, and there, as I have already explained to you, I saw clearly the marks of a cab, which, I ascertained by inquiry, must have been there during the night. I satisfied myself that it was a cab and not a private carriage by the narrow gauge of the wheels. ”

“ If the Engine, instead of carrying the load draws one or more Carriages after it, the toil should be collected and charged on each Carriage, in a similar manner as it is charged on the Engine, that is in proportion to its wheels. ”

“ The boys become very expert at this part of the business, but sometimes suffer severely while learning, in consequence of having their hands caught by the spikes on the cylinders as they revolve. The tow is collected and carried to the card room, which is equally bad in regard to dust as the heckling room. After the tow has been carded, it is ready for spinning. I believe that tow is invariably spun dry. ”

“ There is a cobweb of wheeled vehicles of all sorts, from a cab to a hybrid construction something between a wheelbarrow and a costermonger’s shallow. There is much bawling and flinging, shoving, hoisting, pulling and dragging of parcels; all the horses’ heads seem to be turned the wrong way; everybody’s off-wheel seems locked in somebody else’s ”

“ On any night the spectacle was beautiful. The absolute perfection of all the appointments about the carriages and the harness, their strength, their brilliant cleanliness, their beautiful simplicity—but, more than all, the royal magnificence of the horses—were what might first have fixed the attention. Every carriage on every morning in the year was taken down to an official inspector for examination: wheels, axles, linchpins, pole, glasses, lamps, were all critically probed and tested. ”