oor man would not then show--even judged by our whimsical
legal and moral standards--a greater percentage criminality than the
educated. And if in our statistics we could include degrees of
provocation to the various crimes, such as hunger, poverty, want of the
money to leave exasperating surroundings--it would probably be found
that the poor are, if anything, less criminally disposed than other
sections of the community; that, though they lack something of the
secondary self-restraint which prevents bark and noise, they are, other
things being equal, actually stronger in that primary self-restraint,
the lack of which leads directly to crime. On _a priori_, historical,
grounds one would anticipate such a conclusion.
It is certain that they forgive offence more readily.
I have often wondered how many nice quiet respectable vindictive
murders are yearly done by educated men too clever to be found out. The
poor man is a fool at 'Murder as a Fine Art.' He hacks and bashes.
6.
Sighting, as we thought, some balks of timber, floating away on the ebb
tide over the outside of Broken Rocks, two of us shoved a small boat
down the beach. Our flotsam was a trick of the fading light on the sea,
just where Broken Rocks raised the swell a little; but in the
exquisite, the almost menacing, calm of the evening, we leaned on our
oars and watched for a while. To seaward, the horizon was a peculiar
lowering purple, as if a semi-opaque sheet of glass were placed there.
On land, over the Windgap, the sunset was like many ranks of yellow and
shining black banners--hard, brassy. The sea was a misty blue. One by
one, according to their prominence, the bushes on the face of the
cliffs faded into the general contour. As we landed, a slight lop came
over the water from the dark south-east. "Ah!" said Uncle Jake. "We'm
going to hae it. South-easter's coming!"
[Sidenote: _CALLED OUT BETIMES_]
There was some discussion as to whether or not we should haul the boats
up over the sea-wall. In the end we hauled the smaller ones, leaving
the _Cock Robin_ and the drifter upon the beach.
In the very early morning--it was so dark I could not see the outline
of the window--I half awoke to an indistinct sensation that the house
was rocking and hell unloosed outside. Something solid seemed to be
beating the wall. Than I heard Grandfer's voice roaring at the foot of
the stairs:--"What is it? Why, tell thic Tony he'd better hurry up else
all the bo
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