EELS. 185 



Eels so delicious a taste and so malignant and dangerous an operation, I must not forget 

 the remark of Fuller, "Grant them never so good, excess is a venomous sting in the most 

 wholesome flesh, fish and fowl." However, be this as it may, "the proof of the pudding is 

 in the eating;" and it is certain that hot Eels are a most wholesome and nutritive food to 

 the London poor. "Hot Eels" form an important street luxury; and Mr. Mayhew* has given 

 a minute and interesting account of the trade. 



The skin of the Eel is remarkably tough. In the times of the ancient Romans it was 

 used to whip naughty boys, who were thus exempt from the infliction of any pecuniary fine, 

 having been mulcted, not in coin, but in their own skin If A similar use of Eel-skin prevailed 

 in the sixteenth century, as appears from the following quotation from Rabelais: — "Whereupon 

 his master gave him such a sound lash with an Eel-skin, that his own skin would have been 

 worth nothing to make bag-pipe bags of"J 



Eel-skin is the object of a small trade in some cities. In Tartary it is used, after having 

 being oiled, as a substitute for window-glass. It is supposed by the poor to be a good remedy 

 for cramp or rheumatism, and I have often spoken with poor persons who attach great 

 virtue to the skin of the Eel. "I amner quite sure, maister," said an old man to me once, 

 "whether it be a sartain cure for the rheumatis ; but for cromp, I knows there be nothing 

 loike It." 



Eel-skin must have inflicted severe punishment on boy-skin, not only on account of its 

 toughness, but from the presence of innumerable numbers of concretions of carbonate of 

 lime. A portion of Eel-skin mounted in Canada balsam, and viewed under the polariscope, 

 is a beautiful object for the microscope. Eels vary much in colour ; the silver Eel is 

 generally the most highly prized. Silver Eels are certainly very delicious, but, according to 

 my own experience, I find the green-bellied Eels equally good; nor have I any fault 

 to find with yellow-bellied specimens. Prejudice, of course, is against both of these colours, 

 but I can confidently recommend any Common Eel if he is taken out of clear water. I have 

 seen a cream-coloured Broad-nose, which was doubtless an albino, and owed its whiteness to 

 the absence of pigment cells. Sometimes piebald Eels have been met with, and a corres- 

 pondent in the Field newspaper mentions his once having received an Eel of a rich golden 

 colour like Gold-fish. 



It is not common in this country to meet with an Eel above the weight of five pounds, 

 though there are well authenticated instances of Eels attaining the weight of fifteen, or even 

 twenty pounds. § 



* London Labour and London Poor, vol. i. p. 160. f Pliny, N. H. ix. 23. 



} Book ii. c. 30, translated by Mr. Ozell. Lond. 1737. The term anguilla was in later times applied to a whip 

 made of leather thongs, which was used to flog boys. See Isidore's glosses quoted by Du Cange in his Latin 

 Glossary. "Anguilla est qua coercendi in Scholis pueri, quae vulgo Scutica dicitur." 



§ The substance of the above remarks on Eels was written by me a few years ago, and appeared in a number 

 of the Quarterly Review. I have ]\Ir. Murray's kind permission to make use of that article. 



