SOCIETIES OF LONDON AND THE PROVINCES. 13 



absolutely impossible to overestimate the destruction 

 effected amongst spawning fish, or to others flocking to 

 certain places where a sewage discharge induced them to 

 harbour, than was effected by the detestable and unsports- 

 manlike practice of snatching. The sewer at the foot of 

 Richmond Bridge was a noted place where the so-called 

 angler was in the habit of exercising his unworthy craft. 

 The modus operandi was very much as follows : an angler 

 — heaven save the mark ! — perhaps pretended to be fishing 

 for dace, and attached to his tackle he had a dozen stout 

 hooks set at intervals on his line, some of them baited — 

 others with not even that shallow pretence — with a fragmen- 

 tary portion of worm. All day long these delightful gentry 

 kept dropping a heavily shotted line into the swim, and 

 instantly jerking it upwards again with a powerful stroke. 

 Thus many a great carp has been impaled, many a lusty 

 bream dragged nolens volens from his watery home. The 

 same kind of thing was done openly and in broad daylight, 

 along the parade at Kingston, and the operators pretended 

 they were fishing — legitimately fishing ! Now and again a 

 bold sportsman, rendered hardy and brave with impunity, 

 disdained to use the shallow artifice of the bit of worm at 

 all, and boldly lowered amongst the gathering shoals of 

 bream or dace a cruel implement of sport, consisting of a 

 bunch of bare triangles weighted with a sinker. It may 

 well be in the recollection of a great many disgusted 

 spectators, even as the memory is likely to abide with me 

 for all time, of the shameful and detestable scenes that 

 were wont to be enacted day after day at many of the 

 accessible weirs, when the dace were heading up. I have 

 seen them slaughtered in scores, and scores of hundreds ; 

 and this little game went on day after day, for weeks. It 

 was stopped at last, and high time too. The only wonder 



