AN OCTOBER ABEOAD 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 

 a^Dparently 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. 



