In the first of these diagrams we have a representation of the break attached to the wheel, but inoperative, the jointed circle separating the chain, _c_, and bolt, _b_, from the nave. In the second figure, the entire frame _a_, _b_, _c_, is seen in direct collision with the nave, and by its friction retarding the locked wheel. This, however, does not occur till the breeching of the harness is drawn tight by the pressure of the carriage upon it. OBSTRUCTIONS, OFFENCES, AND INJURIES. By the 1st Geo. I. c. 57, drivers of hackney coaches are to give way to gentlemen’s carriages, under a penalty of 10_s._ If a carriage be obstructed by disorderly persons, the driver should take out his pocket-book, and let the persons guilty of this see that he is taking a note of their number; and he should then coolly tell them that he will summon them if they do not immediately clear the way. If a carriage be injured by another running against it, the driver should ascertain whose carriage has done the mischief, and let his coachmaker give an estimate of the charge for repairing it; but, before he has it done, he should let the person who injured it see the mischief, and pay the charge; or, as is the custom, let the repair be made by the coachmaker of the party who committed the injury. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE TURF. It is singular that no portion of our domestic annals should be so obscure as that which relates to the early history of our first of National Sports. In the remotest ages of civilization (so far at least as any existing records carry us back), a taste for horse-racing was fostered and promoted as a social engine peculiarly adapted to rural and political purposes. The Greeks--the wisest and most polished people that the world has ever seen--carried their estimate of its importance so far, that their chiefs not only took part in the sports of the hippodrome, but acted as officials in the regulation of its details. Philip of Macedon thought it not unbecoming the imperial crown, that he who wore it should discharge the office of judge at the Pythian Games, and his son repaid in gold every line written by Pindar in honour of the chaplet of wild olive.[78] The verse of Pindar, and the prose of Pausanias, have immortalized the names of Olympia and Elis. The latter has left us the minutest particulars of the economy of racing in his day. He describes the Olympian Hippodrome at Elis, and all its gorgeous display of splendid embellishments and ingenious machinery, with a care and prodigality of narrative that give assurance of the importance which attached to the matter delineated. Of the perfection to which, in that era, the science of the course had attained, we need no better proof than the classification observed in the Olympic Games--where horses were matched according to their ages, and prizes instituted for races between mares only (called Calpe). It is needless, however, to