A robbery of a bank of a million, when it happens to affect hundreds of
people, or a midnight murder executed with the malignancy of a fiend,
will sometimes stir up the public for a few days, but even that soon
passes out of mind, and society settles back into its imperturbable
apathy, retreating with each wave of excitement still further, and
becoming by degrees proof against being stirred by anything that does
not affect ourselves personally.

Not so, however, in those days of Arcadian simplicity; for the
astounding temerity of the Piper's son, in laying felonious hands on the
property of the village butcher, or baker, caused an excitement second
only to a hanging, or a first-class sensational horror, of later days.

Poor TOM was a deal to be pitied as well as blamed; for although he was
the one who committed the crime, he was not the only one who reaped a
benefit therefrom. But the traditional historian tells us, he was the
only one who was punished therefor; so, while we blame him, let us shed
a tear of sympathy because he alone got the beating, the others the
eating. The scene is graphically described thusly--

"Tom, Tom the Piper's son,
Stole a pig, and away he run."

Here we see Tom, the good-for-nothing, standing idly around, listening
to the witching strains of his father's bagpipe, played by the
industrious musician before the doors of the well-to-do villagers, with
the laudable view of obtaining the wherewith to purchase the meat that
both might eat; and while the instrument that has well served its day
and generation is groaning and wheezing under the pressure brought to
bear upon it, TOM'S eyes, roving around from window to door, happen to