Waggon

“ The precursor of all public vehicles was the carrier’s waggon, a conveyance of hoary antiquity, intended in the first instance for the carriage of heavy goods, but finding room for those wayfarers who were too poor to own or hire a horse, or possibly too infirm to sit one even if their means sufficed. At least a hundred and fifty years before the earliest stage-coach was put on the road, the waggon, the poor man’s coach, was creaking and groaning on its tedious way at a pace of little more than two miles an hour. ”

“ While threading the way through the intricate labyrinth of waggons, stages, falling horses, and locked wheels, it is highly unpleasant for the denizens of private carriages to find the end of a pole through the back of the equipage, or to be addressed by the coachman, "Massa, dat big waggon is pulling off my wheel." ”

“ Two enormous wheels, covered with iron and garnished with a triple row of nails, support this shapeless waggon, which is protected by a blue awning, and is dragged along by two mules harnessed one in front of the other. Whilst the driver sits in front under the awning, the hapless traveller has to accommodate himself on the floor, with his legs stretched out in front of him. ”

“ Having paid this tribute to my bump of caution, I bought a waggon and a span of oxen on Sir Henry's behalf, and beauties they were. It was a twenty-two-foot waggon with iron axles, very strong, very light, and built throughout of stink wood; not quite a new one, having been to the Diamond fields and back, but in my opinion, all the better for that, for I could see that the wood was well seasoned. If anything is going to give in a waggon, or if there is green wood in it, it will show out on the first trip. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To load a waggon successfully is indeed a work of art: on the hills where the waggons have to run ‘sidelong’ to pick up the crops, one side higher than the other, no one but an experienced hand can make the stuff stay on. Then there is often a tremendous bumping and scraping of the keel on the rocks of the newly-mended roads, and the nasty chopping seas of the deep ruts, besides the long regular Atlantic swells of the furrows and ‘lands.’ So that the cargo had need to be firmly placed in the hold. ”

“ Care having been taken that the waggon sides stand truly, the front and aftermost are first fixed, and the driver, if a man of average height, stands on the centre of the waggon floor, holding the bow as fairly as he can, with the crown of its arch about the level of his eye, say five feet six from the floor, while his assistants, standing outside, fasten the ends with screws or thongs of raw hide, to the styles or stanchions of the waggon sides. ”

“ The effect produced by slow Carriages and horses is different; a Waggon drawn by four horses, which travels regularly from London to Daventry at the rate of three miles an hour, is worked by fifteen horses; the waggon weighs twenty-five cwt, and carries on an average sixty-seven cwt.; the hind wheels are four feet eight inches in diameter, and the front ones four feet; the breadth of the wheels is six inches; they are nearly upright but not cylindrical; the iron tire, when put on, weighs on the fore wheels, 285 lbs., on the hind ditto, 396 lbs., making 621 lbs. ”

“ In travelling with a waggon from almost any civilised colony, it will generally be found that traders and hunters have penetrated so far, that for perhaps 1500 or 2000 miles there is nothing to be done but to let the waggon driver follow their tracks, which will generally be in every respect the best that could be selected, while the traveller hunts or explores on either side the path, or gains experience as to the slope a waggon can climb, descend, or travel on without capsizing ”

“ The usual alternative of a halfpenny a mile or a shilling a day gives about twenty-four miles as a day’s journey for the common stage-waggon, and as the Flying Waggon was advertised to go at the rate of thirty miles a day, six miles a day was therefore the measure of the superiority in speed of one over the other. But the accumulated contempt of all those social scales for the occupant of the common waggon did not rest there, any more than it began with the passengers of the “Machine.” ”

“ The front seat holds three, one of whom is the driver. Door there is none, so the passengers get in over the front wheels, and sprawl across the driver’s seat. The hind places are most in request, since they allow you to rest your shaken frame against the back of the waggon. Women are generally indulged with it, and if they happen to be late, it is a strange sight to see them scramble over the intermediate men. The waggon is open at the sides, but has a roof supported by props, and is provided with curtains which can be buttoned down or rolled up, as the weather is wet or dry. ”

“ The term “wagon” or “waggon” is applied technically in bookbinding to a frame of cane used for trimming the edges of gold leaf. In architecture a “wagon-ceiling” is a boarded roof of the Tudor time, either of semicircular or polygonal section. ”

“ The horse-paths, or spaces between the waggon-tracks of the railway, as proposed above, will be four feet three inches in breadth, or the width of the square part of the common cart axle, it being also a great advantage for the convenience of loading, etc., and for the stability of the railway, to have broad and rather low wagons. ”

“ Generally, a four-wheeled waggon drawn by four horses, with wheels of a less breadth than six inches, would pay a shilling on passing a turnpike gate; with wheels measuring six inches broad and upwards, the toll would be ninepence ”

“ The spaces between the sleepers were filled in with ashes or small stones, to protect the feet of the horses. The waggons were in the form of a hopper, being much broader and longer at the top than at the bottom. At first all four wheels of the waggon were made either of one entire piece of wood or of two or three pieces of wood fastened together, the rim, in either case, being so shaped as to have on one side a projection, or flange, which would keep the wheel on the rails. ”

“ The pair have not long gone down the narrow stairs when a waggon stops outside in the lane, and up comes the carter to speak with the 'drier'—the giant trampling round in the pocket—and to see how the hops 'be getting on.' In five minutes another waggoner looks in, then a couple of ploughboys, next a higgler passing by; no one walks or rides or drives past the hop-kiln without calling to see how things are going on. ”

“ Once more they are stretching their teams along a travelled road—where a half-score of wheeled vehicles must have passed before them. And not long before: the wheel-tracks are of recent impress—the hoof-prints of the animals fresh as if made within the hour. A train of waggons, not unlike their own, must have passed over the burnt prairie! ”

“ When a Down Train consists wholly of loaded Waggons, and there is not any Break Waggon at hand to be sent down in front, the Breaksmen are first to see that at least one-third of the Waggons are provided with good and efficient Breaks ”

“ In America the commonest four-wheeled carriage is the light wagon or buggy, a name given in England to a light two-wheeled, single-seated cart (also called a sulky63) towards the end of the eighteenth century. The buggy has one seat fixed on to a long, shallow tray; the wagon is similar, but has two or more seats.
“These American waggons,” says Thrupp, “were modelled from the old German waggon, but they have been so much improved as to be scarcely recognised. ”

“ The first waggon, which was called Mr Wilmot’s waggon, was fitted up with boxes or lockers all round, and contained all the stores for their own use, such as tea, sugar, coffee, cheeses, hams, tongues, biscuits, soap, and wax candles, wine and spirits in bottles, beside large rolls of tobacco for the Hottentots or presents, and Alexander’s clothes; his mattress lay at the bottom of the waggon, between the lockers. The waggon was covered with a double sail-cloth tilt, and with curtains before and behind; the carpenter’s tools were also in one of the lockers of this waggon. ”

“ This led to the enlargement of the vehicle, which became known as a waggon, and it was mounted on four wheels instead of two. A local writer about the middle of the seventeenth century says, “Many thousand people are engaged in this trade of coals; many live by working of p. 5them in the pits; and many live by conveying them in waggons and wains to the river Tyne.”
Still further to facilitate the haulage of the waggons, pieces of planking were laid parallel upon wooden sleepers, or imbedded in the ordinary track, by which friction was still further diminished. ”

“ Prior to the middle of the seventeenth century, about which period stage-coaches came into use in England, the only vehicles available to ordinary travellers would seem to have been the carrier's stage-waggon, which, owing to its lumbering build and the deplorable state of the roads, made only from ten to fifteen miles in a long summer's day. The interior of such waggons exhibited none of the refinements of modern means of travel, the only furnishing of the machine being a quantity of straw littered on the floor, on which the passengers could sit or lie during the weary hours of their journey. ”

“ Nothing can secure the Goods in Waggons, or the Baskets of Stage Coaches, but the Care of the Drivers, who should have them watched both on and off the Stones, and the Proprietors of the several Road Waggons should have a Man at least on Purpose to guard them five or ten Miles out of Town, a step which is absolutely necessary. ”

“ The weight of the whole waggon is so small that one man can lift it upon its wheels again if accidentally upset, and two persons of ordinary strength can raise it easily from the ground. The four wheels are nearly of the same height, and the body is suspended centrally between them. There are no futchels; the pole or shafts are attached to the front axle-tree bed, and the front of the pole is carried by the horses just as they carry the shafts; the splinter-bar and whipple-trees are attached to the pole on swivels. Some are made without hoods and some with hoods. ”

“ The country waggons are roofed with hides, and have large wheels: the creaking of the latter is very disagreeable; but they will not take the trouble to grease them. Whole families and parties, going long journeys, live and sleep for weeks or months together in waggons drawn by oxen. ”

“ There is also a tremulous motion on a hard road which is not always agreeable. It is not surprising that, with the great advantages of extreme lightness, ease, and durability, and with lofty wheels, the American waggons travel with facility over very rough roads, and there is a great demand for them in our colonies. ”

“ The vehicle, however, in which the letters and packets are forwarded, in consequence of the wretched roads in the interior, and with the view of expediting the transmission of mail matter, is simply a light, open, eminently uncomfortable, two-wheel waggon, in which but one passenger can be taken each trip. Day and night, up hill and down dale, it continues its journey, changing driver and223 horses every two hours, only the unfortunate passenger being condemned to remain glued to the jolting uncomfortable car, until he has attained the end of his journey. ”

“ On a rail-way well constructed, and laid with a declivity of 55 feet in a mile, one horse will readily take down waggons containing from 12 to 15 tons, and bring back the same waggons with four tons in them.... ”

“ Steam Waggons will require very broad wheels, and there is no danger of doing injury to the road by them, for they will not get along if the wheels are too narrow, but narrow-wheeled waggons drawn by horses may do an injury to any extent, for extra horses may be put on, and they will injure the road with their feet at the same time that they draw a Carriage after them, which also injures the road. ”

“ The roads are completely ploughed up at this season of the year, and almost impassable. The waggoners are even a more independent set of men than with us in England; they keep their waggons in the very middle of the road, and will not move for the highest nobleman in the land; this, however, is contrary to the police regulations. The land carriage here is almost entirety managed by mules. ”

“ The cross-bar waggons in general use, weighing little over two hundredweight, with their skeleton wheels, whirl along at a great pace, but the horses all have a check-rein passing over the head, which is far more cruel than even our gag bearing-rein. ”

“ The children of all ages leap joyfully from the waggons, the men loose the oxen from their harness, and then some of them take them to the lowest water-hole, while the rest, and even the women, lend a hand at the work, and arrange the great waggons into the form of a square. ”

“ The number of old fashioned waggons or carts on two solid wooden wheels, drawn by teams of oxen according 70to the weight carried, and the constant passage of them, and of mules and horses, the former with tinkling bells, all laden with country produce, indicate the nature of the traffic which existed prior to the opening of the railway, rendering the streets of the city a busy scene. ”

“ One special advantage claimed by its inventor for this system of marshalling waggons, is that it can be carried out by any active man without previous training, the operations being so simple that the work can be learnt in a week or two, and the only man who is really required to be possessed of geographical knowledge and experience being the one who chalks the numbers of the sidings on the waggons. ”