Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/31

 sleeves, for verily elbow grease would be called for in wholesale quantities. The knowing person who does the steering smiles furtively at the reflection that he is coming out very much ahead in the matter of division of labour. But even with that, it will be observed, he has pulled his hat over his eyes as though rather ashamed of himself for so using a fellow-creature. As well he may be.

After this came the hobby-horse. In 1808 this strange machine—two wheels, tandem fashion, connected by a bar—made its appearance in Paris. There were no means of steering this thing, so that presumably, when the rider, after straddling across the seat placed midway on the connecting-bar, and paddling furiously with his feet against the ground, arrived at a corner, he had to lift up the whole thing and dump it down again in a new direction. After some few years, this seems to have struck a genius as an inconvenience; whereupon said genius proceeded to mount the front wheel, so that it might be turned, and, behold! there emerged the dandy-horse. A Mr. Dennis Johnson, who was a coachmaker, at 75 Long-acre, took out a patent for this dandy or hobby-horse in 1818, and we here reproduce a photograph of one of these very machines of Johnson's—still in existence, and represented as bestridden by Mr. J. Dring, of the Stanley Club, by which gentleman's permission the photographs of the machines in his club's historical collection are used.

These dandy-horses became all the rage, the coat-tails of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers fluttered bravely over the roads, and the striding legs of the same gentlemen beat up the dust north, south, east, and west. It became fashionable, as well as popular, and at the exhibition of the Stanley Club one was shown which had been the property of the great-grandfather of the present Duke of Marlborough.

This ducal vehicle is appropriately rather a swell. It has an ornamented brass fitting at the top of the steering-socket, and an extra large cushion (albeit now burst out) upon which rested the ducal elbows. This was the production of a maker and patentee of the name of Parker. Being fashionable, of course the craze was caricatured, and many