10 ANGLING IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



— has been chiefly amongst the classes of the population 

 that cannot afford, either in time or money, to fish the best 

 waters for the best fish. The anglers who devote them- 

 selves to salmon and trout can, in the main, look very well 

 after themselves. Give them an adequate legislation that 

 shall ensure fair play against the proprietors and occupiers 

 to whom the netting of salmon is a business, and all other 

 things will, without much trouble, be added unto them. 

 They represent the higher branches of the sport of angling. 

 They are the followers of Cotton rather than Father Izaak, 

 the patron saint of what are termed general anglers ; and the 

 time has gone by when the humble angler, who is content 

 with a modest day's roach or perch-fishing, is regarded by 

 them with contemptuous indifference. The angling-books 

 of twenty years ago show that the fortunate individuals 

 who could betake themselves to Norway, or across the 

 St. George's Channel, or North of the Tweed, were given 

 to looking down from a lofty pedestal upon their less for- 

 tunate brother sportsman, who was dubbed a Cockney, 

 and held up, together with his floats, worms, maggots, and 

 ground-bait, to derision. But that day is past. 



If space permitted, it would be interesting to trace how 

 the change has been brought about. Broadly speaking, 

 it has been done by the printing-press, and during the 

 last twenty years, not so much by angling-books, as by 

 literature of a more unsubstantial character. The journal- 

 istic fathers in Israel are answerable primarily for the tens 

 of thousands of members of angling clubs, who weekly 

 obtain healthful recreation by the waterside. " Ephemera " 

 aforetime of BcWs Life, Francis Francis, Grevillc, F., and 

 Cholmondeley Pennell (too young to be a veteran yet, but 

 still ancient enough as an angling writer to come within 

 the category), by their contributions to journals and maga- 



