a land carriage with two wheels, drawn commonly by horses, to carry heavy goods, &c., from one place to another. The word seems formed from the French *charrette*, which signifies the same, or rather the Latin *carreta*, a diminutive of *carrus*. See CARR.

In London and Westminster carts shall not carry more than twelve packs of meal, seven hundred and fifty bricks, one chaldron of coals, &c., on pain of forfeiting one of the horses, (6 Geo. I. cap. 6.) By the laws of the city, cart-men are forbidden to ride either on their carts or horses. They are to lead or drive them on foot through the streets, on the forfeiture of ten shillings. (Stat. 1. Geo. I. cap. 57.) Criminals used to be drawn to execution on a cart. Bawds and other malefactors are whipped at the cart's tail.

Scripture makes mention of a sort of carts or drags used by the Jews to do the office of threshing. They were supported on low thick wheels, bound with iron, which were rolled up and down on the sheaves, to break them, and force out the corn. Something of the like kind also obtained among the Romans, under the denomination of *playfra*, of which Virgil makes mention, (Georg. I.)

*Tardaque Eleusiae matris volventia playfra;* *Tribulaque, trahaeque.*

On which Servius observes, that *trahea* denotes a cart without wheels, and *tribula* a fort of cart armed on all sides with teeth, chiefly used in Africa for threshing corn. The Septuagint and St Jerome represent these carts as furnished with saws, insomuch that their surface was beset with teeth. David having taken Rabbah, the capital of the Ammonites, ordered all the inhabitants to be crushed to pieces under such carts, moving on wheels set with iron teeth; and the king of Damascus is said to have treated the Israelites of the land of Gilead in the same manner.

CART-Bole, in Law, signifies wood to be employed in making and repairing instruments of husbandry.

CARTS of War, a peculiar kind of artillery anciently in use among the Scots. They are thus described in an act of parliament, A.D. 1456: "It is thought expedient, that the king may require of certain of the great barons of the land that are of any might, to make carts of war, and in ilk cart twa gunnits, and ilk one to have two chalmers; with the remnant of the grain that effects thereto, and an cunning man to flout thame." By another act, A.D. 1471, the prelates and barons are commanded to provide such carts of war against their old enemies the English.