96 THE IRRESPONSIBILITY OF CRIME. 



men's gardens being robbed, the thieves presenting rifles 

 or revolvers at the servants who came to interfere ; and 

 when I asked if there were no laws to punish outrages of 

 that description, the reply was, " Yes, there is a law, 

 but if I proceeded to put it in force (which would take 

 me a vast deal of trouble to do), fellows would come in 

 the night and maim my horses or cows ; so I must bow 

 to that sovereign lord, and worst of all tyrants, the 

 people." 



On Sunday, after the hours of worship, I walked about 

 the town, but as it was a holy day, though by the lower 

 classes not in the least regarded as such, I could not see 

 the machinery, of which I had heard strange reports, 

 if true, for the killing, dismembering, and packing up, 

 in a most marvellously short time, of an infinity of pigs. 

 Not feeling very well, I entered a chemist's shop and 

 asked for a saline draught, when the man furnished me 

 with some liquid in a glass, of which, having consider 

 able mistrust, I declined to drink, and then asked him if 

 he did not know what a saline or effervescing draught 

 was, and he confessed he knew nothing about it. He 

 had, however, some effervescing lemonade, so I contented 

 myself with that febrifuge, and prepared to resume my 

 journey towards St Louis on the following morning. 



