A homely and familiar fact may serve to show that the predaceous
impulse does not prevail in the same degree in all classes. Taken
simply as a feature of modern life, the habit of carrying a
walking-stick may seem at best a trivial detail; but the usage
has a significance for the point in question. The classes among
whom the habit most prevails -- the classes with whom the
walking-stick is associated in popular apprehension -- are the
men of the leisure class proper, sporting men, and the
lower-class delinquents. To these might perhaps be added the men
engaged in the pecuniary employments. The same is not true of the
common run of men engaged in industry and it may be noted by the
way that women do not carry a stick except in case of infirmity,
where it has a use of a different kind. The practice is of course
in great measure a matter of polite usage; but the basis of
polite usage is, in turn, the proclivities of the class which
sets the pace in polite usage. The walking-stick serves the
purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's hands are employed
otherwise than in useful effort, and it therefore has utility as
an evidence of leisure. But it is also a weapon, and it meets a
felt need of barbarian man on that ground.
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