s
got his thong coiled round the stick of his whip, or who cannot make
certain of striking the horse on precisely the desired spot, will miss
the opportunity and may find his team in a sad mess, possibly with
disastrous results. If the leader, in spite of a stroke from the whip at
the right moment and on the right spot, still persists in turning, the
only thing to be done is to turn the wheeler also; and then when the
tandem has been straightened, to turn the horses back once more to their
original direction. For this reason it is never safe to harness a tandem
to a four-wheeled vehicle; because if it should be necessary to turn the
wheeler sharply round, the fore-carriage would probably lock and the
trap be overturned. Of comparatively recent years a great improvement
has been effected in the harnessing of a tandem by the introduction of
swinging bars similar to those used in four-in-hand. Formerly the
leading traces in tandem drew direct from tugs on the wheeler's hames,
or less frequently from the stops on the shafts. This left a
considerable length of trace which, when draught was taken off the
leader, hung slack between the two horses; with the result that either
of them might get a leg over the leading trace, with dangerous
consequences. In the more modern arrangement short traces attached to
the wheeler's tugs hold a bar, which is kept in place by a few inches of
chain from the kidney-link on the wheeler's collar. This bar is
connected by short traces or chains with a second bar to which the
leader's true traces are hooked in the usual way, allowing him a
comfortable distance clear of the bar precisely as in four-in-hand. The
leader thus draws as before from the wheeler's tugs; but the length of
trace is broken up by the two swinging bars, and as these are prevented
from falling low by their attachment to the wheeler's collar, the danger
from a too slack leading trace is reduced to a minimum; though care is
needed when the leader is not pulling to prevent the bar falling on his
hocks.

Expert tandem driving, owing to the greater freedom of the leader from
control, is a more difficult art than the driving of four horses, in
spite of the fact that the weight on the hand is much less severe; but
the general principles of the two are the same. In Great Britain,
however, the coach-and-four is the more popular. It is more showy than
tandem; it keeps alive the romantic associations of the days when the
stagecoach was t