A dogcart (or dog-cart) is a light

horse-drawn vehicle A horse-drawn vehicle is a mechanized piece of equipment pulled by one horse or by a team of horses. These vehicles typically had two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers and/or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have m ...

, originally designed for sporting shooters, with a box behind the driver's seat to contain one or more retriever dogs. The dog box could be converted to a second seat. Later variants included : * A one-horse

carriage A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping an ...

, usually two-wheeled and high, with two transverse seats set back to back. It was known as a "bounder" in

British slang British slang is English-language slang originating from and used in the United Kingdom and also used to a limited extent in Anglophone countries such as Ireland, South Africa, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, especially by British expatriates ...

(not to be confused with the

cabriolet A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers. A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving expe ...

of the same name). In India it was called a "tumtum" (possibly an altered form of "

tandem Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...

"). * A French version having four wheels and seats set back to back was a ''dos-à-dos'' (French for "back-to-back"). * An American four-wheeled dogcart, having a compartment for killed game, was called a "game cart". A young or small groom called a "tiger" might stand on a platform at the rear of a dogcart, to help or serve the driver. Frequent references to dog-carts are made by Sir

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...

in his writings about fictional detective

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...

,Dogcart - Things in "Speckled Band".
Melançon Enterprises and indeed by many other

Victorian writers Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...

, as it was a common sight in those days. Fashions in vehicles changed quickly in the nineteenth century, and there is a great 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 curricle was a smart, light, two-wheeled chaise or "chariot", large enough for the driver and a passenger and—most unusually for a vehicle with a single axle—usually drawn by a carefully matched pair of horses. It was popular in t ...

, a smart, light vehicle that fits one driver and passenger, but with two horses; the

chaise A one-horse chaise A three-wheeled "Handchaise", Germany, around 1900, designed to be pushed by a person A chaise, sometimes called chay or shay, is a light two- or four-wheeled traveling or pleasure carriage for one or two people with a folding ...

or shay, in its two-wheeled version for one or two people, with a chair back and a movable hood; and the

, with two wheels, a single horse, and a folding hood that can cover its two occupants, one of whom is the driver. File:Dogcart (PSF).png, Later type of dogcart designed exclusively for a driver and passenger Image:Dos-a-Dos Style Carriage.jpg, Dos-à-dos style carriage File:Dokar from Kalibaru, East Java, Indonesia.jpg, ''Dokar'', the horse cart of

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

References

{{Reflist Carriages Carts

See also

References