Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/280

 everywhere, and uncomplainingly well, all the harder work of society, whether work clean or work dirty, while the old familiar term "shoeblack" had survived into times and ways which left it indeed but dimly applicable to the juvenile director-general of the ingenious little machine in question.

The crowning of the young Victoria was indeed a memorable incident of its time. The interest was increased by the circumstance of the extreme youth of the successful candidate for so high an honour. Her age, when she claimed the crown, was but eighteen years and twenty-four days. Old England had once more a Queen Victoria, whose graceful young head bore a crown. It was the only crown that had survived in the world into these times, the noblest of crowns —