Writing to Mann in June, 1755, Walpole, after regretting the absence of social news in England, mentions the latest Paris fashion. “All the news from France,” he says, “is that a new madness reigns there, as strong as that of Pantins was. This is _la fureur des cabriolets, Anglicè_, one-horse chairs, a mode introduced by Mr. [Josiah] Child; they not only universally go in them, but wear them; that is, everything is to be _en cabriolet_; the men paint them on their waistcoats and have them embroidered for clocks to their stockings; and the women, who have gone all the winter without anything on their heads, are now muffled up in great caps [calash hoods] with round sides, in the form of, and scarce less than the wheels of chaises.” “The cabriolet head-dress,” says Wright,[43] “was soon improved into _post-chaises_, _chairs-and-chairmen_, and even _broad-waggons_.” So we have _A Modern Morning_, published in 1757:— “Then Caelia to her toilet goes, Attended by some favourite beaux. ‘Nelly! why, where’s the creature fled? Put my post-chaise upon my head.’ ‘Your _chair-and-chairman_, ma’am, is brought.’ ‘Stupid! the creature has no thought!’ ‘And, ma’am, the milliner is come, She’s brought the _broad-wheel’d waggon_ home.’” In which structures Caelia sallies forth. These cabriolets rivalled the phaetons as fashionable carriages, and indeed as the _new gigs_ came to resemble them in every point save the number of the wheels. There is a print by Colley, dated 1781, showing one of these new gigs. The small chair, very high, holding two people, is supported by long curved supports, which in themselves of course acted as springs of a kind. Two horses are being driven tandem, with a postilion driving the leader. Another print, by Bunbury, called _Sir Gregory Gigg_, shows a young man driving a pair of horses abreast. He is seated in a still smaller, and slightly lower, chair. This was a _curricle_ rather than a cabriolet, and it was such a carriage which the braggart sportsman, John Thorpe, describes to Catharine in _Northanger Abbey_: “Curricle-hung, you see, seat, trunk, sword-case, splashing board, lamps, silver-moulding, all, you see, complete; the ironwork as good as new, or better. He [the first owner] asked fifty guineas; I closed with him, threw the money down, and the carriage was mine.” The shape of these curricles is well seen in Bunbury’s drawing. A glance at the newspaper advertisements of the day will afford an insight into the various carriages in use. So, for instance, in 1767 we have:— An exceeding good Post chariot, the Box to take off. A neet genteel Single Horse Chaise, painted green, and hung upon Steel Springs. An exceeding fine black gelding that goes well in an Italian Chair, with a Tail. A very neat fashionable Chaise.