232 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 
It was indeed a horrible creature — ^possessing a life the 
most strangely incomprehensible that can be conceived, and 
the only parallels to which, in the disguise of humanity, that 
are to be found among us, exist in the buzzard race of rag- 
picking gutter- rakers, which the dreadful distortions of Euro- 
pean life have weekly vomited upon our shores. 
The creature was what is called a boat or river thief — one 
who lived by petty thieving — a prowler along the desolate 
river shore, from small settlement to settlement — a compara- 
tive harmless wretch, appropriating everything he could lay 
his hands upon in the shape of movable or convertable 
property ; boats, poultry, pigs and groceries, left exposed 
one night upon the landings. He had evidently received 
a severe striping lately — most probably for some petty 
theft — as I could see the blue whelks and blood-crusted 
scars plainly enough through the loop-holes of his tattered 
shirt. 
It was droll indeed to witness the airs of " indignant vir- 
tue" forthwith assumed by the delectable and " chosen" in- 
nocents who constituted the inmates of the hut. They rose 
at once upon the poor miserable devil, as the wolf snarls 
through white tusks at the feeble carrion crow, or at the 
slow-winged, obscene aura^ that comes flapping in slow glide 
above a promised feast. He begged for food in vain, and 
before he had time to whine out his pitiful story, they seized 
and hurled him out into the darkness from whence he had 
emerged, floating on a drift-log down the fretful river. I 
felt as if the time had come when I must act, if ever. So 
standing behind these virtuous gentry, just as they had suc- 
ceeded in turning out the poor river-thief, by their united 
efforts, my friend and myself presented ourselves at the door 
with weapons cocked, and ordered them peremptorily off, 
telling them that we knew them to be far worse and more 
dangerous scoundrels than the poor creature they had thrown 
into night. 
" Now !" said I, " we undersiand you fully for a set of 
