30 RIGHT AXD LEFT 



the left shoulder. A murderer's left hand is said by good 

 authorities to be an excellent thing to do magic with ; but 

 here I cannot speak from personal experience. Nor do I 

 know why the wedding-ring is worn on the left hand ; 

 though it is significant, at any rate, that the mark of slavery 

 should be put by the man with his own right upon the 

 inferior member of the weaker vessel. Strong-minded 

 ladies may get up an agitation if they like to alter this 

 gross injustice of the centuries. 



One curious minor application of rights and lefts is the 

 rule of the road as it exists in England. How it arose I 

 can't say, any more than I can say why a lady sits her side- 

 saddle to the left. Coachmen, to be sure, are quite unani- 

 mous that the leftward route enables them to see how close 

 they are passing to another carriage ; but, as all continental 

 authority is equally convinced the other way, I make no 

 doubt this is a mere illusion of long-continued custom. It 

 is curious, however, that the English usage, having once 

 obtained in these islands, has influenced railways, not only 

 in Britain, but over all Europe. Trains, like carriages, go 

 to the left when they pass ; and this habit, quite natural 

 in England, was transplanted by the early engineers to the 

 Continent, where ordinary* carriages, of course, go to the 

 right. In America, to be sure, the trains also go right like 

 the carriages: but then, those Americans have such a 

 curiously un-English way of being strictly consistent and 

 logical in their doings.*^ 7 In Britain we should have com- 

 promised the matter by going sometimes one way and some- 

 times the other. 



