On Everything
authority that the article in question was not a headgear. It appears in none of the statuary of the period. No mention of it is made in any of the vast compilations of legal matter which have come down to us, and attempts have been made to explain in an allegorical sense the very definite allusions to it with which English letters of that time abound. I am content to accept the documentary evidence in the plain meaning of the words used, and to portray to you these 'toiling millions' (to use the phrase of the great classic poet) hurrying eastward upon this delightful morning in March of the year 1899. Each is carrying the implement of his trade (possession in which was secured to him by law). The one holds a pickaxe, another balances upon his head a ladder, a third is rolling before him a large square box or 'trunk'—a word of Oriental origin—upon a 'trolley' or small two-wheeled vehicle dedicated to some one of the five combinations of letters which had a connection not hitherto established with the system of roads and railways in the country. Yet another drags after him a small dynamo mounted on wheels, such as may be seen in the frieze illustrating the Paris Exhibition of ten years before.
"Interspersed with this crowd may be seen the soldiery, clad entirely in bright red. But these, by a custom which has already the force of law, are compelled to occupy the middle of the thoroughfare. They are of the same class as the labouring men round them, and like these carry the implements of
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