even if they could, which is doubtful, for the collars are fixed in such a firm manner round their throats, that it would be impossible to remove them without utterly destroying them.
These collars they obtain at the colleges of transcendental geography after a very severe examination, which, as is invariably the case with all examinations here under Government control, as this is, is principally on the hieroglyphics and scarcely touches on geography. Along with the collar the successful candidates obtain the title of "Transcendental," as an affix to their name, and of this they are vastly proud. In fact, with their collar and their title they seemed to me to consider themselves, and are regarded by some of their hearers, as beings of a superior race to all not so decorated. Some of the men of Colymbia, moved doubtless by envy at the prestige given to the professors, and believing it was due more to the collar they wore than to the subject they professed, endeavoured to get up an agitation in order to induce the legislature to pass a kind of sumptuary law, compelling the transcendental professors to discard their green collars which gave them an unfair advantage in general society, or at least to confine the wearing of it to the actual time when they were engaged in lecturing. But this move failed most signally, as it was easily to be foreseen it would, and the consequence was that the collars of the professors became greener, higher and stiffer than ever, to the disgust of their opponents, and to the great discomfort of the wearers, who, however, bore their sufferings with fortitude as they saw the annoyance they caused their enemies.
The young men of my acquaintance mostly exhibited a remarkable reluctance to talk about transcendental
