ressing the surprise I felt at his permitting such a hardened
rogue to go at large, he said that our wisest course was to get away. The
lad was evidently supported by a gang, and we might be beaten as well as
robbed, for our pains. Besides, the handkerchief was not actually taken,
attendance in the courts was both expensive and vexatious, and he would be
bound over to prosecute. In England, the complainant is compelled to
prosecute, which is, in effect, a premium on crime! We retain many of the
absurdities of the common law, and, among others, some which depend on a
distinction between the intention and the commission of the act; but I do
not know that any of our States are so unjust as to punish a citizen, in
this way, because he has already been the victim of a rogue.

After all, I am not so certain our law is much better; but I believe more
of the _onus_ of obtaining justice falls on the injured party here than it
does with us: still we are both too much under the dominion of the common
law.

The next day I was looking at a bronze statue of Achilles, at Hyde Park
Corner, which had been erected in honour of the Duke of Wellington. The
place, like every other fashionable haunt at that season, was
comparatively deserted. Still, there might have been fifty persons in
sight. "Stop him! stop him!" cried a man, who was chasing another directly
towards me. The chase, to use nautical terms, began to lighten ship by
throwing overboard first one article and then another. As these objects
were cast in different directions, he probably hoped that his pursuer,
like Atalantis, might stop to pick them up. The last that appeared in the
air was a hat, when, finding himself hemmed in between three of us, the
thief suffered himself to be taken. A young man had been sleeping on the
grass, and this land-pirate had absolutely succeeded in getting his shoes,
his handkerchief, and his hat; but an attempt to _take off his cravat_ had
awoke the sleeper. In this case, the prisoner was marched off under sundry
severe threats of vengeance; for the _robbee_ was heated with the run, and
really looked so ridiculous that his anger was quite natural.

My business was now done, and I left London in a night-coach for
Southampton. The place of rendezvous was the White Horse Cellar, in
Piccadilly--a spot almost as celebrated for those who are _in transitu_,
as was the Isthmus of Suez of old. I took an inside seat this time, for
the convenience of a nap.