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 unanimous 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. In Britain we should have
compromised the matter by going sometimes one way and sometimes the
other.
EVOLUTION
Everybody nowadays talks about evolution.
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