England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; Great Britain -- History -- William IV, 1830-1837
"The appointments of an English coach are no less elegant than
its form. A portly 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 as a sort
of appendage, rather than a means of correction in the hand which
carries it. In England, where everything is so well arranged,
where each person knows so well how to confine himself to the
exigencies of his proper position, the horses do better what they
have to do than the horses of other countries, and that, too,
without the need of a brutal correction. One may travel from one
end of England to the other without hearing the sound of a whip,
or the hallooing of conductors, which in France fall so
disagreeably on the ears of travellers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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