be considered as a STEAM-HORSE, with no more danger than we should
apprehend from a restive animal, in whose veins the steam or mettle
circulates with too high a pressure. Fair trials have been made of
the Improved Carriage on our common roads, the Premier has decided the
machine "to be of great national importance," from sundry experiments
witnessed by his grace, at Hounslow Barracks; and the coach is
announced "really to start next month (the 1st) in working--not
experimental journeys--for travellers between London and Bath."[1]
Crack upon crack will follow joke upon joke; the _Omnibus_, with its
phaeton-like coursers will be eclipsed; and a journey to Bath and the
Hot Wells by steam will soon be an everyday event.

Descriptions of Mr. Gurney's carriage have been so often before the
public, that extended detail is unnecessary. Besides, all our liege
subscribers will turn to the account in our No. 287. The recent
improvements have been perspicuously stated by Mr. Herapath, of
Cranford, in a letter in the _Times_ newspaper, and we cannot do
better than adopt and abridge a portion of his communication.

"The present differs from the earlier carriage, in several
improvements in the machinery, suggested by experiment; also in
having no propellers;[2] and in having only four wheels instead of
six; the apparatus for guiding being applied immediately to the two
fore-wheels, bearing a part of the weight, instead of two extra
leading wheels bearing little or none. No person can conceive the
absolute control this apparatus gives to the director of the carriage,
unless he has had the same opportunities of observing it which I
had in a ride with Mr. Gurney. Whilst the wheels obey the slightest
motions of the hand, a trifling pressure of the foot keeps them
inflexibly steady, however rough the ground. To the hind axle, which