such evil eyes,
that they should be so completely estranged from all its recognised modes
of thought and action, that it should seem to them such a complete curse,
was what I was not prepared to expect. It really made one's blood run
cold to hear the mob around me talk. The man to be hung had rushed into
a jeweller's shop as it was being closed, beaten the shopman, who tried
to defend his master's property, with a life-preserver, and then left him
for dead. But he had not said one word about his accomplices, and the
crowd evidently admired him rather than not. "The ticket-of-leave man
was out on starvation," as one of them informed me. "The Government," I
drop the expressive adjective by which the noun was prefixed, "dodges
him, and if he steals it is only what he must do, and if murder follows
it is not his fault, and Government is unjust in hanging him for it."
Such was the popular notion of the subject in my immediate neighbourhood.
Government seemed to have planned the opportunity for the holders of such
opinions to ventilate them. Till eight o'clock these men were to be
formed into one compact mass; and how were they to pass their time if
they did not talk? and here who was there to lift up his voice on behalf
of law and order? and if there were such, who would have listened?
Realise the state of the case. Look around! Where do you see the clear
front and unabashed presence of honesty and virtue? The virtuous and the
honest have long been in bed. Here there is a fight. That bundle of
rags, with matted hair covering all the face so that you cannot clearly
see a feature, is the Clare Market Pet, and she has just encountered
Slashing Sal, between whom and herself there has been mortal enmity for
years. Both women--yes, they are women, nor so fallen are they but that
the temperance agent or the city missionary may yet lead them to a
diviner life, and _He_ may smile on them who never yet turned away
repentant son or daughter of sin and shame--are very tipsy, very dirty,
and very red. Shrieking and cursing, the Clare Market Pet rushes on
Slashing Sal, who is by no means loth for the encounter. A ring is
formed, men and boys halloo and encourage, and the battle rages
furiously, though both women are far too drunk to do each other any
serious harm. At length the Clare Market Pet is vanquished and order is
restored, just as we are told tranquillity reigns at Naples. "Please
give me a penny," says a girl of abo