both to the giver and taker, if they give them money; nor is it less
penal for any freeman to take money from them upon any account
whatsoever: and it is also death for any of these slaves (so they are
called) to handle arms. Those of every division of the country are
distinguished by a peculiar mark, which it is capital for them to lay
aside, to go out of their bounds, or to talk with a slave of another
jurisdiction, and the very attempt of an escape is no less penal than an
escape itself. It is death for any other slave to be accessory to it;
and if a freeman engages in it he is condemned to slavery. Those that
discover it are rewarded--if freemen, in money; and if slaves, with
liberty, together with a pardon for being accessory to it; that so they
might find their account rather in repenting of their engaging in such a
design than in persisting in it.

"These are their laws and rules in relation to robbery, and it is obvious
that they are as advantageous as they are mild and gentle; since vice is
not only destroyed and men preserved, but they are treated in such a
manner as to make them see the necessity of being honest and of employing
the rest of their lives in repairing the injuries they had formerly done
to society. Nor is there any hazard of their falling back to their old
customs; and so little do travellers apprehend mischief from them that
they generally make use of them for guides from one jurisdiction to
another; for there is nothing left them by which they can rob or be the
better for it, since, as they are disarmed, so the very having of money
is a sufficient conviction: and as they are certainly punished if
discovered, so they cannot hope to escape; for their habit being in all
the parts of it different from what is commonly worn, they cannot fly
away, unless they would go naked, and even then their cropped ear would
betray them. The only danger to be feared from them is their conspiring
against the government; but those of one division and neighbourhood can