here is a respect for property, inculcated and protected by the law,
which should never be departed from; and, whatever may have been the
aggressions on the part of Mr Vanslyperken, or of the dog, still a tail
is a tail, and whether mangy or not, is _bona fide_ a part of the living
body; and this aggression must inevitably come under the head of the
cutting and maiming act, which act, however, it must, with the same
candour which will ever guide our pen, be acknowledged, was not passed
until a much later period than that to the history of which our
narrative refers.

Having thus, with all deference, offered our humble opinion, we shall
revert to facts. Mr Vanslyperken went on shore, with the dog's tail in
his pocket. He walked with rapid strides towards the half-way houses,
in one of which was the room tenanted by his aged mother; for, to whom
else could he apply for consolation in this case of severe distress?
That it was Moggy Salisbury who gave the cruel blow, was a fact
completely substantiated by evidence; but that it was Smallbones who
held the dog, and who thereby became a participator, and therefore
equally culpable, was a surmise to which the insinuations of the
corporal had given all the authority of direct evidence. And, as Mr
Vanslyperken felt that Moggy was not only out of his power, but even if
in his power, that he dare not retaliate upon her, for reasons which we
have already explained to our readers; it was, therefore, clear to him,
that Smallbones was the party upon whom his indignation could be the
most safely vented; and, moreover, that in so doing, he was only paying
off a long accumulating debt of hatred and ill-will. But, at the same
time, Mr Vanslyperken had made up his mind that a lad who could be
floated out to the Nab buoy and back again without sinking--who could
have a bullet through his head without a mark remaining--and who could
swallow a whole twopenny-worth of arsenic without feeling more than a
twinge in his stomach, was not so very easy to be made away with. That
the corporal's vision was no fiction, was evident--the lad was not to be
hurt by mortal man; but although the widow's arsenic had failed, Mr
Vanslyperken, in his superstition, accounted for it on the grounds that
the woman was not the active agent on the occasion, having only prepared
the herring, it not having been received from her hands by Smallbones.
The reader may recollect that, in the last interview between
Vansly