SOCIALISM. 15 



the husbands and grown men were killed, the Dog- 

 ribs argued that pity impelled them to slaughter 

 also the wives and children, who would be unhappy 

 and perish for want, having lost their means of 

 support. To a people who could no longer sup- 

 port the tyranny of their bolder neighbours, nor 

 combine so as to repel aggression by force, treachery 

 seemed to be the only mode of obtaining redress ; 

 and in fact the extent to which they carried their 

 reprisals effectually broke the spirit of the Red- 

 knives, and drove them to a distance. 



The Dog-ribs are practical socialists ; and, as 

 much of the misery they occasionally experience 

 may be traced to this cause, the study of the 

 working of such a system may be instructive in a 

 community like this, whose members owe their 

 condition in the social scale solely to their personal 

 qualities, and not to inheritance, favour, or the 

 other accidents which complicate the results in 

 civilised life. Custom has established among them 

 a practice universally acted upon, — that all may 

 avail themselves of the produce of a hunter's energy 

 and skill ; and they do not even leave to him the 

 distribution of his own game. When it is known 

 in the camp that deer have been killed, the old 

 men and women of each family sally forth with 

 their sledges, and, tracing up the hunter's foot- 

 steps to the carcases of the animals he has slain, 



