In 1860 a carriage was made for one of the ladies of the Sultan of Turkey’s harem. It was built, I believe, from a design by the late Owen Jones—a great authority upon Oriental art—and cost £15,000 of English money—a very expensive present for the Commander of the Faithful to make to one out of many wives. The following is given in an American trade periodical, under the heading of “Are they Competent Judges?”— “Carriage-makers who seldom if ever take the lines into their hands and ride out in carriages of their own manufacture, are they competent judges of the merits or the demerits of the vehicles which they with confidence recommend to others? We think not. It is one thing to oversee and pay well for the building of a fine buggy or any other kind of vehicle, and quite another to experience the sensations produced by putting them into actual wear. A buggy may be handsome in general appearance and composed of the best material, yet defective in ease of motion and comfort to the occupants. The set of the axle may cause the vehicle to run heavy, and communicate to the rider an unpleasant jarring motion, and at the same time add unnecessary labour to the horse. The springs may be too stiff for their length, and fail to vibrate sufficiently under the greatest weight they may be called upon to sustain. The seat may be too low, the back placed in such a position or so trimmed as to be a continual source of uneasiness, and the foot-room be cramped. These and other defects may exist while the carriage-maker who seldom rides out remains in total ignorance of them, in so far as his own personal experience extends. Now an individual having purchased a buggy of such a one, might drive up to his door and inform him that this or that defect existed and needed to be remedied, and fail to convince the maker that such was the case. He would probably plead the skill of his workman, the care with which every buggy was carried forward to completion, and thus fortify himself in his own opinions, through gross ignorance of what constituted comfort while seated in a vehicle carried along over roads of different degrees of smoothness. “The tendency of such a course is toward a standstill point in the way of needed improvement, and must certainly work adversely to the carriage-makers’ interests. So far as our observation extends, we are well satisfied that the builder who adopts an opposite course is by far the most successful. Becoming sensible of defects by personal experience, he is keenly sensitive and anxious to remove any cause of complaint brought to his notice by others. With such a one the customer feels that he is dealing with a manufacturer alive to his convenience and comfort, and will not be apt to go elsewhere to purchase, although he may have had occasion to point out several weak points.”