Page:Letters from England.djvu/170

 undeniably vouched for by documentary evidence. Good, I have found here and there, that good old England, which outwardly has survived in the form of black rafters and carved frontages, as a result of which it has a pretty black and white criss-cross pattern. I should be reluctant to indulge in too venturesome hypotheses, but it seems to me that the black and white stripes on the sleeves of English policemen have their origin precisely in that criss-cross style of old English houses, as shown in the drawing.

England, it should be explained, is a country of historical traditions; and everything that is, has some cause, as was taught by John Locke, if I remember rightly. In some towns, as, for example Chester, the