The Slower Road

Several weeks ago, we began a read-along of sorts: small weekly morsels comprising the chapter on tandem driving in the first volume of  The Sports Library (by Mr. T. F. Dale), published in 1899.

If you didn’t start reading along with us from the beginning, you can catch up by reading part of the book’s introduction (and the introduction to our look back at this nineteenth-century book) and parts one, two, three, four, and five of Chapter 10.

Today, the sixth part:

… It is therefore evident that the use of the whip must be mastered to some extent before a man can hope to drive tandem with safety or comfort. To learn the use of the whip neatly and effectively is a matter of practice.

The best and indeed the only way with which I am acquainted is to sit beside a good coachman and watch the action of his wrist as he lets out his thong and catches it again, bringing it round the crop with a couple of neat turns. As soon as you think you know how it should be done, the rest is simple — not easy — for that is quite another matter. Practice is what is needed.

Perched on a driving seat, you must throw out and catch the whip until you can do it with neatness, lightness, and precision. It is very seldom necessary in driving tandem to hit either of your horses hard, it is often necessary to hit them quickly. A light touch in time will often prevent a nervous leader from coming round. Then wheelers grow cunning and scamp the corners, necessitating often a sharp stroke with the double thong to keep them away at a turn.

And here I may say that it is well always to give yourself plenty of room at a corner, especially if you are unable to see round it. …

Several weeks ago, we began a read-along of sorts: small weekly morsels containing the chapter on tandem driving in the first volume of  The Sports Library (by Mr. T. F. Dale), published in 1899.

If you didn’t start reading along with us from the beginning, you can catch up by reading part of the book’s introduction (and the introduction to our look back at this nineteenth-century book) and parts one, two, three, and four of Chapter 10.

Today, the fifth part:

… Over smooth or level roads the leader should do little or no work. It is a fault of young drivers that they allow the leader to pull the whole affair; this should never be. Consequently, when the leader is wanted to help he will require a reminder with the whip. This must be quickly and lightly done with a sure hand so as not to disturb the wheeler, still less to hit him by mistake. Then after a time, wheelers grow cunning and hang back to let the leader do more than his share, and many wheelers require reminders from time to time. Of course in long journeys over bad roads such as those I have described above when both animals will have to work hard in order to get the load through, the whip will be of still greater use and value, and the mastery of it will be much rewarded.

For example, in the sandy bed of a river, I have known a not too high-couraged leader to pull up, and turning half round look at me as much as to say, “You never expect me to pull through this stuff, do you?” but a sharp touch with the whip, and as he straightened a tap on the other side, often served to get him to work again. All the use of the whip in a tandem in bad ground should be quick, neat, and light. As soon as you come to flogging it is only a question of time when the team will stop. It is better then to send a man to the leader’s head. It is always necessary and wise to remember the weak point of a tandem, which is this — if your leader will not work and wishes to turn round, you cannot really prevent him. Much must be trusted to the honor of the leader.

To paraphrase slightly a well-known coaching saying, much that the four-in-hand coachman can do by direct means the tandem driver must achieve by artifice. …

And the horsepower that pulled all those ice wagons? I assume that these are the horses in question, as this photo looks like it came from the same collection as yesterday’s ice wagons.

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(from the Jack and Marge Day collection)

A few weeks ago, I started sharing, in small weekly morsels, the chapter on tandem driving in the first volume of  The Sports Library (by Mr. T. F. Dale), published in 1899.

You can read part of the book’s introduction (and the introduction to our look back at this nineteenth-century book) here. The first part of our “reading” of Chapter 10 is here, the second part is here, and the third part is here.

Today, the fourth part:

… But all this time, nothing has been said about the whip, which is a most important help to tandem-driving. It is possible to drive a coach some distance without unfolding your thong, and there are a good many men who drive four horses who are shy of using their whips in public. This part of his education, however, the would-be tandem-driver must not shirk; he must absolutely gain considerable skill with the whip if his is to make a creditable appearance. Nothing betrays awkwardness so certainly as the whip of the tandem-driver. It may, and will, unless used deftly, catch in all sorts of places in the harness or even wind itself around the axle. Therefore, it is necessary to handle the whip lightly and quickly, and above all to catch it neatly, or some such humiliating accident may happen as occurred to the writer.

I have already told how I used a tandem as a means of conveyance along the frontier roads. There was one part of the road leading to a large village where the going was not bad, save for the fact that the native farmers had built right across it little bunds, or banks about two feet in height, and with water-channels on the top. The object of these was to irrigate the fields on the other side of the road to that on which the wells were situated. Thus, at every hundred yards for about half a mile before the village was reached, there was one of these banks. It was plain that the best way to take them was to go fast and keep straight, especially as my wheeler was a mare somewhat given to jibbing if checked suddenly. Accordingly, I straightened my team, hit my wheeler with the double thong, and let out the lash so as to catch the leader under the bar and make him tighten his traces at the critical moment.

Once this happened, we flew the little obstacle in capital style. But in the excitement of the moment I failed to bring back the lash to my hand — it was in the early days — and it flew back, wound round the neck of my syce, who was sitting behind, at the very moment when the cart bounded up into the air, and shot the man out. The effect was to break a new whip, far away from all means of having it mended, and very hard work it is to drive a tandem one hundred and fifty miles without a whip. Then I learned to realize how important a part in tandem-driving the whip plays, far more than in any other kind of driving. The tandem coachman’s whip, then, must be always ready. …