But if the Act was intended to apply to hackney carriages without horses then the word 'the' would have had replaced by something like 'any' (the coloured text in the square brackets).
The word 'the' seems to presuppose that horses are attached
If the word had been 'any' then it would have assumed that horses might not be attached
TPCA 1847 wrote:
62 Penalties in case of carriages being unattended at places of public resort.
If the driver of any hackney carriage leave it in any street or at any place of public resort or entertainment, whether it be hired or not, without some one proper to take care of it, any constable may drive away such hackney carriage and deposit it, and the [any] horse or horses harnessed thereto, at some neighbouring livery stable or other place of safe custody; and such driver shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding [F74level 1 on the standard scale]for such offence; and in default of payment of the said penalty upon conviction, and of the expenses of taking and keeping the said hackney carriage and horse or horses, the same, together with the harness belonging thereto, or any of them, shall be sold by order of the justice before whom such conviction is made, and after deducting from the produce of such sale the amount of the said penalty, and of all costs and expenses, as well of the proceedings before such justice as of the taking, keeping, and sale of the said hackney carriage, and of the said horse or horses and harness, the surplus (if any) of the g.,aid produce shall be paid to the proprietor of such hackney carriage.