deep ranks moved slowly out, some
ease was given to those pent up behind; and it was really wonderful
to see the facility with which the people adapted themselves to the
orders of their directors. Every chance of falling in was seized, and
soon the procession was in motion. The first five hundred men were of
the artisan class. They were dressed very respectably, and each man
wore upon his left shoulder a green rosette, and on his left arm a
band of crape. Numbers had hat-bands depending to the shoulder;
others had close crape intertwined carefully with green ribbon around
their hats; and the great majority of the better sort adhered to this
plan, which was executed with a skill unmistakably feminine. Here and
there at intervals a man appeared with a broad green scarf around his
shoulders, some embroidered with shamrocks, and others decorated with
harps. There was not a man throughout the procession but was
conspicuous by some emblem of nationality. Appointed officers walked
at the sides with wands in their hands and gently kept back the
curious and interested crowd whose sympathy was certainly
demonstrative. Behind the five hundred men came a couple of thousand
young children. These excited, perhaps, the most considerable
interest amongst the bystanders, whether sympathetic, neutral, or
opposite. Of tender age and innocent of opinions on any subject, they
were being marshalled by their parents in a demonstration which will
probably give a tone to their career hereafter; and seeds in the
juvenile mind ever bear fruit in due season. The presence of these
shivering little ones gave a serious significance to the
procession--they were hostages to the party who had organized the
demonstration. Earnestness must indeed have been strong in the mind
of the parent who directed his little son or daughter to walk in
saturating rain and painful cold through five or six miles of mud and
water, and all this merely to say "I and my children were there." It
portends something more than sentiment. It is national education with
a vengeance. Comment on this remarkable constituent was very frequent
throughout the day, and when toward evening this band of boys sang
out with lusty unanimity a popular Yankee air, spectators were
satisfied of their culture and training. After the children came
about one hundred young women who had been unable t