16 HINTS ON ANGLING. 



and invite their curates to dine with them once, to ce- 

 ment the bonds of Christian charity ; poor-law guardians 

 who are dissolved into tears once a- week over the miseries 

 of pauperism, and expend their valuable time in weigh- 

 ing out ounces of cheese, and measuring out gruel as a 

 substitute foi carrion soup; worn-out public functionaries 

 who have wasted their lives in riotous eating and drink- 

 ing, and have retired upon a " compensation" sufficient 

 to keep out wind and water; these, and such as these, 

 with a few others of a different but equally contemptible 

 stamp, are the principal personages who pour forth the 

 tears of sympathy and regret over the sportive cruelties 

 of the unfortunate angler. 



To give a particular instance, in which this species of 

 extravagant and mock sentimentality was publicly ex- 

 hibited, we shall mention a peculiarly interesting scene, 

 which was enacted about five years ago by the then lord 

 mayor of London and the lobster merchants of Billings- 

 gate. It would appear, from the police reports, that the 

 most inhuman and, indeed, diabolical cruelties had been 

 perpetrated for many years in the London market, by a 

 certain class of lobster fishermen, who, being grossly igno- 

 rant of the humanising doctrines of the age, had followed 

 the ancient and cruel practice which is termed " pegging" 

 the lobsters. The necessity for this heathenish and bar- 

 barous custom, arose, it was alleged, from the unculti- 

 vated and quarrelsome propensities of the lobsters them- 

 selves, which, not having been placed under any civilising 

 influences whatever, did, when removed from their natu- 

 ral element, and put into unaccustomed baskets, squabble 

 and, indeed, quarrel in a terrible manner on their way to 

 the metropolis, previously to being scalded to death and 

 remorselessly devoured by the most tender-hearted and 



