Liberalism had not yet raised the war-cry of the working classes.

But here was his mistake: it was a needless regulation.

Except in a very few cases of hypocrisy joined to a powerful intellect, men, not by nature _umbrellarians_, have tried again and again to become so by art, and yet have failed--have expended their patrimony in the purchase of umbrella after umbrella, and yet have systematically lost them, and have finally, with contrite spirits and shrunken purses, given up their vain struggle, and relied on theft and borrowing for the remainder of their lives.

This is the most remarkable fact that we have had occasion to notice; and yet we challenge the candid reader to call it in question.

Now, as there cannot be any _moral selection_ in a mere dead piece of furniture--as the umbrella cannot be supposed to have an affinity for individual men equal and reciprocal to that which men certainly feel toward individual umbrellas--we took the trouble of consulting a scientific friend as to whether there was any possible physical explanation of the phenomenon.