On the London Road 



London camel in principle. To complete it add 

 shafts in front, and at the rear run a low free-board, 

 as a sailor would say, along the edge, that the cargo 

 may not be shaken off. All the skill of the fashion- 

 able brougham - builders in Long Acre could not 

 contrive a vehicle which would meet the requirements 

 of the case so well as this. On the desert routes of 

 Palestine a donkey becomes romantic; in a coster- 

 monger's barrow he is only an ass; the donkey 

 himself doesn't see the distinction. He draws a 

 good deal of human nature about in these barrows, 

 and perhaps finds it very much the same in Surrey 

 and Syria. For if any one thinks the familiar barrow 

 is merely a truck for the conveyance of cabbages and 

 carrots, and for the exposure of the same to the choice 

 of housewives in Bermondsey, he is mistaken. Far 

 beyond that, it is the symbol, the solid expression, 

 of life itself to the owner, his family, and circle of 

 connections, more so than even the ship to the sailor, 

 as the sailor, no matter how he may love his ship, 

 longs for port, and the joys of the shore, but the 

 barrow folk are always at sea on land. Such care 

 has to be taken of the miserable pony or the shame- 

 faced jackass; he has to be groomed, and fed, and 

 looked to in his shed, and this occupies three or four 

 of the family at least, lads and strapping young girls, 

 night and morning. Besides which, the circle of 

 connections look in to see how he is going on, and 

 to hear the story of the day's adventures, and what 

 is proposed for to-morrow. Perhaps one is invited 

 to join the next excursion, and thinks as much of it 

 as others might do of an invitation for a cruise in 

 the Mediterranean. Any one who watches the suc- 

 cession of barrows driving along through the village 

 out into the fields of Kent can easily see how they 

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