- Dogcart
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This article is about horse-drawn vehicles. For carts pulled by dogs, see Dogcart (dog-drawn).
A dogcart is a light horse-drawn vehicle. There are several types:
- A one-horse carriage, usually two-wheeled and high, with two transverse seats set back to back. It was known as a "bounder" in British slang (not to be confused with the cabriolet of the same name). In India it was called a "tumtum" (possibly an altered form of "tandem").
- A dogcart having four wheels and seats set back to back was a dos-à-dos. "Dos-à-dos" means back-to-back in French.
- Another four-wheeled dogcart was called a "game cart".[1]
A young or small groom called a "tiger" sometimes rode, usually standing, on a platform at the rear of a dogcart driven by the person on whom he was in attendance.
Frequent references to dogcarts are made by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his writings about fictional detective Sherlock Holmes[2], and indeed by many other Victorian writers, as it was a common sight in those days.
Fashions in vehicles changed quickly in the nineteenth century, and there are a bewildering variety of names for different types. The dog-cart bears some resemblance to the phaeton, a sporty, lightly sprung one-horse carriage; the curricle, a smart, light vehicle that fits one driver and passenger, but with two horses; the chaise or shay, in its two-wheeled version for one or two people, with a chair back and a movable hood; and the cabriolet, with two wheels, a single horse, and a folding hood that can cover its two occupants, one of whom is the driver.
See also
- Jaunting car
- Governess cart
References
- ^ Seabrook Coaching Stable Dispersal Auction: Game Cart Trap. The Carriage Association of America, Inc.
- ^ Dogcart - Things in "Speckled Band". Melançon Enterprises
Categories:- Carriages
- Carts
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