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shafts for the wolf and a splinter-bar for the man. The splinter-bar
came into use when the roads were bad. The van was strong, although it
was built of light boards like a dove-cot. In front there was a glass
door with a little balcony used for orations, which had something of the
character of the platform tempered by an air of the pulpit. At the back
there was a door with a practicable panel. By lowering the three steps
which turned on a hinge below the door, access was gained to the hut,
which at night was securely fastened with bolt and lock. Rain and snow
had fallen plentifully on it; it had been painted, but of what colour it
was difficult to say, change of season being to vans what changes of
reign are to courtiers. In front, outside, was a board, a kind of
frontispiece, on which the following inscription might once have been
deciphered; it was in black letters on a white ground, but by degrees
the characters had become confused and blurred:--
"By friction gold loses every year a fourteen hundredth part of its
bulk. This is what is called the Wear. Hence it follows that on fourteen
hundred millions of gold in circulation throughout the world, one
million is lost annually. This million dissolves into dust, flies away,
floats about, is reduced to atoms, charges, drugs, weighs down
consciences, amalgamates with the souls of the rich whom it renders
proud, and with those of the poor whom it renders brutish."
The inscription, rubbed and blotted by the rain and by the kindness of
nature, was fortunately illegible, for it is possible that its
philosophy concerning the inhalation of gold, at the same time both
enigmatical and lucid, might not have been to the taste of the sheriffs,
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