“There are people, I may say,” runs this most impolite retort, “a depraved Number, who write long letters upon this Subject in an ignorant Manner. Their Errors confirm Mankind of a sensible Turn what Measures ought to be taken for the Benefit of the trading Part of this Nation. The illiterate Scribblers he [the last correspondent] means to lash are those that insist upon the Necessity of Horses going at length instead of being placed abreast. The Power that draft Horses have in being placed abreast is so well known, that ’tis amazing any body is absurd enough to advance a Doctrine to the contrary. Then again, these deluded Idiots propagate, that the Loads drawn by eight Horses, having the Wheels placed nine Inches within nine, are destructive to the Roads, and that the Weight had better be divided into several narrow wheeled Carriages. Being thus destitute of Judgment upon the Subject, they do not reflect that the more Horses and Carriages the more the Expence increases, consequently that the internal Trade of this Kingdom would advance in this Article 100 per Cent. One Waggon with eight Horses in Pairs, drawing eight Ton upon the new Plan, don’t do near the Mischief that the same Weight would in two Waggons with narrow Wheels. Besides, four Horses at length cannot draw four Ton Weight. A late trifling Writer upon the Subject says, the Appearance of a broad Wheel Waggon was terrific. I think he may be pronounced a Cockney without Ceremony—a Cit that carries his Wife and Children four Miles out of Town in a Tim-Whisky, and, being most likely an aukward Driver, suffers the Squalls of his Horn-making Spouse to alarm his Dove-like Pusillanimity.”
Such a man, the article goes on to say, would surely be frightened if he saw a three-master sailing the seas, and he and his kind had better keep quiet upon a subject of which they appeared so entirely and pitiably ignorant.
The contest began to embrace wider issues than the mere wheels of waggons. It took in the whole question of wheeled carriages. It even went so far as to include a denunciation of the general policy of the Government, whose legislation, or lack of it, on this vexed question was, so the light-cart faction maintained, leading directly to an increase in the price of provisions. Nothing, apparently, was right. If waggons were constructed on principles which were as bad as they could be, so were the Stage-coaches, which also were using the public roads, though some of the controversialists seemed to forget the fact.