Many there are, it
is true, who are obtuse and vicious below the mean,--but a far greater
number display skill and courage infinitely above it. Points of noble
character, of every good as well as most base characteristics of the
human race, will be found in the annals of thievery, when they are
written aright.
Thieves, like the State of Massachusetts in the great man's oration,
"have their history," and it may be safely asserted that they did not
steal it. It is dimly hinted in the verse of a certain ancient, that
there was a time in a remoter antiquity "ere thieves were feared"; yet
even this is cautiously quiet as to their non-existence. Homer,
recounting traditions old in his time, chuckles with narrative delight
over the boldness, wit, and invention of a great cattle-stealer, and
for his genius renders him the ultimatum of Greek tribute,
intellectually speaking, by calling him a son of Zeus. Herodotus speaks
plainly and tells a story; and the best of all his stories, to our
thinking, is a thief's story, which we abridge thus.
"The king Rhampsinitus, the priests informed me, possessed a great
quantity of money, such as no succeeding king was able to surpass or
nearly come up to, and, wishing to treasure it, he built a chamber of
stone, one wall of which was against the palace.
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