The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-07-28
THE SEDAN CHAIR.

History OF the Curious Vehicle Fashion Is
About to Revive.
When his holiness the pope is carried
in his chair on, poles supported on the
shoulders of twelve servitors from the
Sala Regia to the Sistine chapel, and
occasionally into the loggia above the
portico of St Peters, he practically
uses sedan without roof, and it was
in these chairs on poles that the Roman
magnificoes sneered at by Juvenal were
borne through the crowded streets of
Rome. These uncovered sedans must
not be COMPOUNDED with the ancient lit
tiers, which very much resembled in
shape the palanquin which may be
seen every day in the streets of Cal
cutta, and which were kind of bed,
wherein the inmate reclined either on
his elbow or at full length. Wealthy
Romans when they travelled through
the provinces, of the empire, sat in a
covered sedan chair during the day,
and lay in covered litter throughout
the night. 1t is curious fact, as re-
CARDS the oriental palanquin, that in
1854 the court of directors of the East
India company ordered that their cove
nanted servants should lay aside the ex
pense of either horse. chair, or palanquin
during their writership," on the ground
that indulging these embryo nabobs
with chairs on poles, borne by coolies,
contributed not little to 1.-The neglect
of business and afforded them oppor-
tunities for rambling" Little more
than half century afterwards we find
the frugal and self-denying Sir Arthur
Wellesley writing to Major Shaw to give
orders for a palanquin to be made for
him. Precise in this as in most other
matters. the hero of Assaye directed
that his palanquin should be very
light" that the panels should be made
of canvas instead of wood, and the
poles fixed as for dhoolie." Your
Bengali palanquins," adds the future
victor Of Waterloo. ARE so heavy that
they cannot be used out of Calcutta"
To the traveller of moderate means,
the principal expense of the palanquin
was in the number of relays of bearers
required to carry it. This mattered
little to the Romans, since the bearers
were nearly always slaves, and the
price of labor in Hindostan is moderate
enough to warrant the employment of
large number of bearers, but in
France, in the seventeenth century,
there was duchess of Nemours who
half ruined herself by her craze for
travelling backward and forward in her
sedan to her principality of Neufchatel,
which was situated at distance of one
hundred and thirty leagues from Paris.
aggregate to fifty men, always accom-
panied the duchess on these journeys,
one of which took ten days to accom-
plish. and the cost of paying, lodging.
and feeding these retainers was neces-
sarily prodigious. French experts
stoutly maintain that the sedan chair
was invented by LA Refine Margot,"
the first wife of Henry w.: but it can
only be proved that the sprightly queen
in question availed herself SO constant
ly of the facilities offered by an uncov-
cred sedan that it is almost to be won
dered at that the vehicle did not come
to be called "margot" instead of
"chaise n porteurs." In any case, it is
certain that the first covered and closed
sedans were introduced into France at
the beginning of the reign of Louis
XIII. by the marquis de Montbrun. and
that shortly afterwards a concession
for building them was granted to three
Partisan characterization Tele-
graph.