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cerned, that law is an institution perfectly unknown to them, and never by any chance required; consequently, they do not possess any courts of justice, nor have they any laws by which they are kept honest. Of course, the appropriating of goods belonging to tribes with which they are at variance is deemed laudable in the extreme; therefore, opportunities for such acts of abstraction are never allowed to pass unutilised. There are, 'tis true, odd evasions, when the strong pilfers from the weak, even amongst themselves, and laugh at their dupes, too, should they feel aggrieved enough at the unlicensed appropriation to offer any demur. Such cases, however, are of very rare occurrence, and are limited to thefts of the pettiest description, such as a coveted piece of wood for the making of a weapon, or a portion of cooked fish, which the owner had carefully put aside for further consumption. These, and similar cases to these, the reader can readily see are but mild forms of stealing, and can scarcely be classed under the generic term of dishonesty.
The aborigines not having any courts of justice, as a natural consequence the lawyer element does not obtain amongst them, nor have they any judges or patriarchs to whom disputed points can be referred; but, for all this, they manage to exist in (for savages), a fairish manner.
They do not consider any offence criminal, unless it be that of murder; and when such has been perpetrated, the whole tribe sits in judgment upon the culprit. One of the old men generally prosecutes in these cases. However, the legal acumen required under the circumstances is of the smallest, because as a rule the culprit acknowledges his crime, and the tribe merely assemble to hear any extenua-
