A cart is a vehicle or device, using two wheels and normally one horse, designed for transport. A handcart is pulled or pushed by a person. It is different from a dray or wagon, which is a heavy transport vehicle with four wheels and normally at least two horses, which in turn is different from a carriage, which is used exclusively for transporting humans.

Animals such as oxen, zebu cattle or donkeys are sometimes used instead of horses.

History

Carts were often used for judicial punishments, both to transport the condemned – a public humiliation in itself (in Ancient Rome defeated leaders were often carried in the victorious general's triumph) – and even, in England until its substitution by the whipping post under Queen Elizabeth I, to tie the condemned to the cart-tail and administer him or her a public whipping.

Types of carts

Larger carts may be drawn by animals, such as horses, mules, or oxen. They have been in continuous use since the invention of the wheel, in the 5th millennium BC. Carts may be named for the animal that pulls them, such as horsecarts or oxcarts. In modern times, horsecarts are used in competition while draft horse showing. A dogcart, however, is usually a cart designed to carry hunting dogs: an open cart with two cross-seats back to back; the dogs could be penned between the rear-facing seat and the back end. The term "cart" (synonymous in this sense with chair) is also used for various kinds of lightweight, two-wheeled carriages, some of them sprung carts (or spring carts), especially those used as open pleasure or sporting vehicles. They could be drawn by a horse, pony or dog. Examples include:

• cocking cart: short-bodied, high, two-wheeled, seat for a groom behind the box; for tandem driving

• dogcart: light, usually one horse, commonly two-wheeled and high, two transverse seats set back to back

• donkey cart: underslung axle, two lengthwise seats; also called pony cart, tub-cart

• governess cart: light, two-wheeled, entered from the rear, body partly or wholly of wickerwork, seat for two persons along each side; also called governess car, tub-cart