VALUE OF THE .SALMON. .19 



with cruelty, except the Vegetarians ; and not even tliey, 

 for in munching their bhides, they destroy myriads of 

 peculiarly innocent and harmless creatures, existing or 

 prospective : you take their life very effectually when 

 you do take the means whereby they live — and their life 

 besides. Just let the young lady who is shocked at the 

 cruelty of angling tell us on what she has been dining. 

 Is it not lamb, the flesh of the animal which all the 

 poets, over whom she has such pleasure in sighing, have 

 chosen as the very emblem of innocence and helpless- 

 ness ? " Yes, l)ut / did not kill it ; I sought no pleasure 

 in the poor thing's death." We join issue with you 

 here, and insist that wherever there is any difference 

 between you, the lamb-eater, and us, the fish-slayers, it 

 is all in our favour. To get that joint of lamb, you 

 hired a coarse and greasy butcher, who, with " unkind 

 clutches" in its fleece, roughly seized the little bleater, 

 tied its feet with cruel cords — those feet, you know, that 

 gambolled on the hill and frisked over the mead, and so 

 forth — dashed it roughly on a stool, and thrust a jagged 

 knife through its innocent throat. " Shocking !" Very ; 

 and all your doing. Miss ; that is, though you pretend not 

 to know the history of a leg of lamb, done for your de- 

 lectation, and in fulfilment of your orders — " Here comes 

 the body of Caesar, mourned by Mark Antony, who, 

 though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the 

 benefit of his dying." In virtue of the prerogative given 

 men over the fish of the flood — in obedience to that in- 

 stinct to hunt and slay, implanted in aU the sons of 

 Adam, and, as the chaplain in "Jonathan Wild" justly 

 remarked of punch, " nowhere spoken against in Scrip- 



