“The appointments of an English coach are no less elegant than its form. A portly, good-looking coachman seated on a very high coach-box, well dressed, wearing white gloves, a nosegay in his button-hole, and his chin enveloped in an enormous cravat, drives four horses perfectly matched and harnessed, and as carefully groomed as when they excited admiration in the carriages of Grosvenor and Berkeley Squares. Such is the manner in which English horses are managed, such also is their docility, the effect either of temperament or training, that you do not remark the least restiveness in them. Four-horse coaches are to be seen rapidly traversing the most populous streets of London, without occasioning the least accident, without being at all inconvenienced in the midst of the numerous carriages which hardly leave the necessary space to pass. The swearing of ostlers is never heard at the relays any more than the neighing of horses; nor are you interrupted on the road by the voice of the coachman or the sound of his whip, which differs only from a cabriolet whip in the length of the thong, and serves more as a sort of appendage than a means of correction in the hand which carries it.” [50] _Omnibuses and Cabs._ [51] See note on p. 192. [52] According to Mr. Moore, whose account of this matter seems perfectly clear, the actual vehicle which proved so popular when plying the streets contained very much more of Chapman’s work than of Hansom’s, and, indeed, if full justice had been done, these light carriages should have come down to posterity as _chapmans_ and not _hansoms_ at all. On the other hand it is quite possible, that but for Hansom’s work, Chapman would never have given such careful attention to this class of vehicle. [53] It seems, however, that so long as ten years before _one-horse cars_ of this form had been plying for hire in Birmingham and Liverpool. [54] _Modern Carriages._ Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart. London, 1905.