12 ANGLING IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



every available bit of water by societies of gentlemen who 

 can afford to pay for it. For this there is no help. We 

 live in a free country, and if the owner of a stream, which 

 his forefathers permitted to be fished by his neighbours, 

 chooses to let it at a rental, he has the right to do so. 

 Equally have a dozen city gentlemen, who love the amuse- 

 ment of angling, and can, by their purses, command the 

 means of indulging in it under agreeable conditions, the 

 right, morally and legally, of securing it for a consideration, 

 or without one if they have the chance. Nevertheless, the 

 effect is to limit the waters available to the masses of 

 anglers. 



The larger rivers beloved of general anglers are open, 

 under easy and equitable regulations. The Thames, Trent, 

 Ouse, and others of that class, are not yet parcelled out 

 into subscription waters, and of smaller streams, like the 

 Lea, and portions of the Colne, it should not be forgotten 

 that the small fee demanded for a day-ticket is more than 

 counterbalanced by the advantages gained by watching 

 and preservation. In the immediate vicinity of large towns, 

 indeed, there is something to be said for the oft-heard 

 complaint that open waters are scarcely worth fishing, 

 unless they are under the charge of some such model 

 guardians as the Thames Angling Preservation Society. 

 The cutting down of ancient privileges is suffered mostly 

 in rural or semi-rural districts, to which town anglers were 

 wont to issue, attracted as much by the pleasures of the 

 country surroundings, as the more direct operations of 

 fish capture. 



Of the joys of angling I have nothing at present to say, 

 except to remark that it is a sport which, more than any 

 other, owes much of its fascination to features that are 

 only indirectly connected with it. Some years ago a 



