The Dog-cart and Tandem-cart belong also to the beginning of the present century in their origin. Dr Edgeworth speaks with horror of the reckless height to which they attained in 1817. “Carriages,” he says, “have arisen to a preposterous elevation. That private phaetons and barouches should be mounted out of the town dust, and above the country hedges, is a dangerous luxury, but it does not materially affect the public. The invention of that daring vehicle, ‘the Suicide,’ will not probably be much imitated among Christian people; and fortunately the laws have limited the elevation to which, by the absurdity of coachmen, mail coaches might have been raised.” The “Suicide” was the name of a very high tandem gig, wherein the groom was mounted upon a seat three feet above the driver. It received its name in Ireland. The first Dog-carts had a large and deep boot with Venetian slats in the sides, to contain greyhounds or pointers, and the four passengers sat back to back. Tandem-carts were made in a similar manner with a large boot, the driver’s seat raised, something like the Salisbury boot fashion, whilst the groom’s seat was, like the hind seat of a drag, raised from the boot on ironwork. The gradual development of the Dog-cart in all its varied shapes of high cart and low cart, Newport, Pagnell, Malvern cart, Whitechapel, sliding body cart, Norwich cart, &c., are too well known to need enlarging upon. They have afforded facilities of agreeable locomotion to millions at a very moderate cost, and, if carefully driven, are as reasonably safe as any vehicle. Who drives faster than a butcher boy, and over roads of all sorts--dry, rough, slippery, or newly made--the horse’s head held with a snaffle-bit only--and yet it is very seldom that the horse falls. With the growth of our trade and manufactures the system arose of sending commercial travellers throughout England, to call the attention of shopkeepers to novelties in manufactured goods. It was found advantageous to send these travellers in light vehicles which could convey samples of the manufactures, and this custom led to the multiplication of gigs in far greater quantities than would have been otherwise required. About 1830 one coach factory in London supplied several hundreds of these vehicles to commercial travellers at annual rentals. Now, this sort of travelling to show samples and solicit orders is performed by railway, and the greatest number of two-wheeled vehicles belong to farmers. In 1810 a duty was levied by Government upon carriages for sale. It was repealed in 1825, but the returns give the number of vehicles built for private use in 1814 as 3636, and in 1824 as 5143, whilst the number of carriages in use in 1824 had grown to nearly 29,000 four-wheeled, and 36,000 two-wheeled, besides 15,000 tax-carts, a total increase, since 1814, of 20,000 vehicles.