48 THE ADVENTURES 



salmon were to get into those meshes ? For I 

 suppose you don't warn them off; do you ? 



" Bless your heart, sir ! don't you believe all 

 you hears; them Chester fishermen as comes 

 down here a layin hinformations, and a swearing 

 aginhuz; they'll say hanny thin. They 're a pack 

 of the lyingest rascally poachers as ever was! 

 Ony let me an another or two ketch'em down here 

 again, on hanny sich dirty arrands ! " 



The consequences left to the imagination, the 

 pause filled up with another tremendous squirt 

 and the pipe resumed ; to which we will leave 

 him. 



" Well, but I should like to know what the 

 Chester fishermen do say ? " 



" Why they do say, that, of course, these stake 

 nets are about the most destructive engines the 

 salmon have to encounter. That they themselves 

 have not a chance of getting any fish, so long 

 as they are permitted to exist; they say, that the 

 people ( down the river' kill every man jack of 

 them, and are, moreover, (returning the com- 

 pliment of our friend above,) ( a pack of, &c., 

 &c./ leaving you, at the same time, to infer that 

 they themselves are a family of the most upright, 

 conscientious, irreproachable fishermen that have 

 ever existed since the days of St, Peter. That 

 they would not take a salmon under size, nor 



