Runaway Convicts

I was over at Clayton Cramer's Blog and came upon this amusing quotation from a book published in 1840.

A bowie-knife, dirk, or pistols, commonly occupy the desk-drawer of Congressional members; who, as a close observer remarked to me—"not only look four ways at once, but in manners and deportment strongly remind me of runaway convicts." [Henry Cook Todd, Notes Upon Canada and the United States: From 1832 to 1840 2nd ed. (Toronto: Rogers and Thompson, 1840), 181]

Ha! The look of runaway convicts. Nothing much has changed since 1840, has it?