Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/215



Mr. John Macneil. 6 September, 1831. , where the road is shaded by trees; to get at something like an average proportion between the wear occasioned by horses' feet and the wheels of Carriages. I have procured the following facts: the Coaches which run between London and Birmingham require an hundred horses on an average, to work the up and down Coach; the horses are generally shod, by contract, at about 2s. 6d. per horse per month; those near London are much larger and heavier, and therefore require heavier shoes than those twenty miles out of London, and from thence to Birmingham; near London in the flint districts the wear of horses' shoes is much more than it is in the quartz and limestone countries. At Stony Stratford, the weight of the four shoes of a Mail and Stage Coach-horse averages five pounds, and when taken off at the end of about twenty-eight days they weigh very nearly two pounds: in this period, the horses run 252 miles. At Towcester, Weedon and Daventry the weight of the new shoes is one pour and a half each, and when taken off weigh nearly three-fourths of a pound; the length of time which they remain on is about thirty days.; this would give a wear of three pounds per horse per month, but if the greater wear near London be considered. I think it would not be too much to allow the wear equal to four pounds per horse per month, which for 100 horses for ten weeks would give a wear of 1,000 lbs, of iron. The hind wheels of the Coaches are mostly font feet eight inches in diameter, and the front wheel three feet. The width of tire. I before stated is about two inches, and when new, the thickness of the iron is three quarters, of an inch. These wheels are found to last from two to three months, according to the state of the weather, the workmanship and quality of iron, (about twenty years ago they did not last seven days on an average;) suppose they now last ten weeks, in that time the tire is worn down to one-sixth of its original thickness; this would be equal to 163.4 lbs, or 326.8 for both Coaches; this would be to the wear of the horses' shoes as 326.8 to 1,000, or as 1 to 3-14ths nearly; now if the injury done to the road by the horses' feet