altogether things of the past. This may be so in public; but I imagine that in private there is a lurking tinge of it in every human bosom. CHAPTER III. In maritime towns, at a season of the year when there is no inducement for them to wander into the fields, boys who have nothing else to do, on play-days, are very apt to lounge, more or less, on the wharves and in the Market Place. When quite a youngster, I witnessed a scene on the spot last named, the incidents of which are as vivid in my memory as at the moment when they occurred, more than half a century ago. Though the commerce of our town had very materially declined from its former condition of wonderful activity and enterprise, it was still kept up with considerable semblance of its former spirit, and, besides our native vessels, a foreign ship occasionally sailed up our beautiful river. A few miles beyond the stream, in the neighboring State, dwelt a population chiefly agricultural, a portion of which, pursuing the avocation of small farmers and fishermen, alternately, for they were directly on the borders of the sea and somewhat isolated in their position, besides, were certainly a little wild in character and habits; though I am told that great improvement among them, in these respects, has taken place of later years. We called them "Algerines," from which epithet, more opprobrious than probably just, our estimate of their pretensions to civilization may be inferred. It was the practice of these people to bring their fish in whale-boats to our market, which was the nearest to their homes, and to dispose of this fruit of their often perilous labors either for money, or for such commodities as they required. I was standing, one afternoon, near a group of foreign sailors, believed to be Spaniards, with the natural curiosity of a boy, and rough-looking specimens of humanity they certainly were. It seemed that they had fallen into dispute with the crew, some three or four men, of an Algerine boat, and though the language on one side and the other was altogether unintelligible to the parties, the tones were uncommonly high. Doubtless, the Spaniards were resenting some insult offered by the Algerines,--prompted by that sort of jealousy and dislike with which the lower classes of English blood have been in the habit of regarding those of other nationalities. The quarrel seemed especially at its height between one of the Spanish crew and a young man of remarkable stature in coarse seaman's dress, with a great bush of long yellow locks hanging over the collar of his jacket, whose name it appeared was Souter. The Spanish champion had drawn an ugly looking knife, from which unfamiliar weapon, flourished so near his person, the Algerine instinctively flinched. At this critical moment, the patriarch of the Yankee crew, a tall, gaunt old man, with grizzled hair, stepped into the arena, and, seizing the foreigner by the collar, cried