AN OCTOBER ABROAD 169 



park, and the loud, hankering sounds of the bucks, 

 as they pursued or circled around the does, was a 

 new sound to my ears. The rabbits and pheasants 

 also were objects of the liveliest interest to me, and 

 I found that after all a good shot at them with 

 the eye, especially when I could credit myself with 

 alertness or stealthiness, was satisfaction enough. 



I thought it worthy of note that, though these 

 great parks in and about London were so free, and 

 apparently without any police regulations whatever, 

 yet I never saw prowling about them any of those 

 vicious, ruffianly-looking characters that generally 

 infest the neighborhood of our great cities, especially 

 of a Sunday. There were troops of boys, but they 

 were astonishingly quiet and innoxious, very unlike 

 American boys, white or black, a band of whom 

 making excursions into the 'country are always a 

 band of outlaws. Ruffianism with us is no doubt 

 much more brazen and pronounced, not merely be 

 cause the law is lax, but because such is the genius 

 of the people. 



