Page:A Sketch of the Life of George Wilson, the Blackheath Pedestrian.djvu/17

 from their pockets in the metropolis; and had I ventured to try my fortune in any of those wonderful capacities on Blackheath, probably I should not have been considered so obnoxious to grave authorities, or so dangerous to the public peace. But it seems now to be settled, upon learned and orthodox authority, that a poor old man, walking a given number of rounds of the same mile, upon the obscure corner of a public common, either for his amusement, or to acquire a few pounds for his subsistence, the payment of his trifling debts, and the relief of his children, with no other apparatus than his limbs and the scanty clothes on his back, may, yet, be a much more formidable and dangerous animal, in the eyes of Justiciary wisdom than ordinary men think; and, though he may not have done anything in himself to excite riot or tumult, and though no such disorder, or any symptom thereof, had occurred, still, by some remote possibility, it might occur; and, therefore, as in the language of Doctor Solomon, "Prevention is better than Cure." It might, also, be perfectly wise and just to take such a person into custody, as the grand nucleus of popular attraction, the great first cause of tumult in embryo, and thereby secure, in the very egg, abortion to the coming mischief, which, though imperceptible to ordinary views, is palpable to the second sight of the sapient seer, who, like the hogs of the highlanders, can ''ken mischief in the wind. All other person might be suffered to depart in peace, (however they may have contributed to popular congregation, their pockets well lined by their gains), as mere harmless accessaries; but, "one man may safely steal a horse, while another'' is hanged for peeping over the hedge."