> as lemmas

1839 H. Brandon Dict. Flash or Cant Lang. in W. A. Miles Poverty, Mendicity & Crime 163/1 Everlasting Staircase, the treadmill.

1845 J. G. Millingen Jack Hornet II. xii. 271 One would as soon be scragged as to be tramping up and down the everlasting staircase.

1899 Cassier's Mag. Apr. 461/1 The muscular propellers, whom we see climbing up the ‘everlasting staircase’ [in an early horseless carriage propelled on the hamster wheel principle].

1903 ‘No. 7’ 25 Years in 17 Prisons vi. 54 This was the only time I was ever required to mount the ‘everlasting staircase’, and I was such an awkward hand at it—there is an art in working the tread-mill—that I got into trouble more than once during that month.

1999 R. Matthews Doing Time ii. 46 Long periods on the ‘everlasting staircase’, as it was known, caused serious physical damage to both men and women.