208 THE REV. J. G. WOOD. 



billiards, luncheon, &c,, might eat luncheon for twelve consecutive 

 hours, if he liked. 



A decided impediment to walking lies in the habit of putting 

 great boxes of heavy goods on the side- walk. A huge waggon (drawn 

 by five horses, three abreast in the shafts and two in the traces) pulls 

 up opposite the store say a sewing-machine business and some 

 20 or 30 big square boxes are dumped down anyhow on the 

 pavement, and the foot-passenger has to dodge his way amongst 

 them if he can. If he can't he must go out into the road (already 

 narrowed by the waggon) among horse-cars, " bobtails," buggies, 

 carts, omnibuses, &c., &c., and so work round the obstacle. I find 

 that the best plan is to get on the platform of a horse-car. Then the 

 conductor explains objurgatprially that you are going in the wrong 

 direction. You argue the point until you have passed the obstacle, 

 and then you yield it and get off. 



The following is curious and interesting : 



One would have thought that the U.S.A. would be, of all 

 civilised countries in the world, the least superstitious; Yet 

 " Cranford," before the advent of the railway, does' not yield ta 

 Boston or New York in point of superstition. The artisan, who 

 will deride the Bible, class the clergyman with Mumbo- Jumbo, and 

 deny a future state, believes with all his soul (only he says that he 

 has none) in the HORSE-SHOE. Should he accidentally (he must not 

 look for it, or the spell would be gone) find a cast hoi'se-shoe, he is 

 a happy man. He polishes it, he will go without his dinner for a 

 week to gild it, he nails it over his door, and makes it his fetish. 

 He jeers at the very name of God. He yells blasphemies that are 

 enough to curdle one's blood. But when you ask him about his 

 horse-shoe he speaks with bated breath, and would, if he dared, 

 shoot or stab anyone who would apply to it the same epithets that 

 he applies to the Bible. This is not second-hand. I have seen it 

 myself in factories where even the heads of departments could not 

 feel secure without a horse-shoe over their doors. Let them have 

 their fetish if they like. But it does seem the acme of illogical 

 absurdity for a man to inveigh against the Bible as superstitious, 

 and then to feel himself guarded against all earthly ills because he 

 happens to have found a horse-shoe ! 



