The sweeper does better at holiday seasons than at any other time. If he is blessed with a post for a companion, he decks it with a flower or sprig of green, and sweeps a clear stage round it, which is said to be a difficult exploit, though we have never tried it. At Christmas, he expects a double fee from his old patrons, and gets it too, and a substantial slice of plum-pudding from the old lady in the first floor opposite. He decks the entrance to his walk with laurel and holly, in honour of the day, and of his company, who walk under a triumphal arch of green, got up for that occasion only. He is sure of a good collection on that day, and he goes home with his pocket heavy and his heart light, and treats himself to a pot of old ale, warmed over a fire kindled with his old broom, and sipped sparingly to the melody of a good old song about the good old times, when crossing-sweepers grew rich, and bequeathed fortunes to their patrons.
Animals possess the power of feeling, and of effecting certain movements, by the exercise of a muscular apparatus with which their bodies are furnished. They are distinguished from the organisations of the vegetable kingdom by the presence of these attributes. Every one is aware, that when the child sees some strange and unknown object he is observing start suddenly into motion, he will exclaim: 'It is alive!' By this exclamation, he means to express his conviction that the object is endowed with _animal_ life. Power of voluntary and independent motion and animal organisation are associated together, as inseparable and essentially connected ideas, by even the earliest experience in the economy and ways of nature.
The animal faculty of voluntary motion, in almost every case, confers upon the creature the ability to transfer its body from place to place. In some animals, the weight of the body is sustained by immersion in a fluid as dense as itself. It is then carried about with very little expenditure of effort, either by the waving action of vibratile cilia scattered over its external surface, or by the oar-like movement of certain portions of its frame especially adapted to the purpose. In other animals, the weight of the body rests directly upon the ground, and has, therefore, to be lifted from place to place by more powerful mechanical contrivances.