INTRODUCTION. 17 



philanthropic citizens on the face of the globe. His 

 lordship denounced this horrid practice with all that 

 effective and dignified eloquence which usually charac- 

 terises civic circumstances, and matters touching the well- 

 being and happiness of the creature. His lordship's 

 judicial habits enabled him to discover two unfortunate 

 truths ; namely, that lobsters were animals; and that, 

 consequently, they came under the humane protection of 

 an "act of Parliament." After having pursued this 

 refined and subtle argument through all its most distant 

 and logical ramifications and consequences, he stumbled 

 upon a most important fact, which seemed to arouse all 

 his best feelings and acutest sensibilities. It occurred to 

 his lordship that, in addition to the cruelty of this nefarious 

 practice, it exercised a fatal influence on the flavour and 

 condition of a favourite delicacy; which was more than 

 sufficient to decide the merits of the question. His 

 lordship saw at a glance into the very pith of the 

 matter. His stomach poked him into the very marrow of 

 the case. All reasoning on the subject was immediately 

 set aside, and the " uneducated" and irreligious lobster 

 " peggers," were denounced by his benevolent lordship, 

 as the most savage and barbarous monsters that were ever 

 allowed to go unhanged. 



We have always maintained, that we were prepared to 

 take the accusations of cruelty urged against the angler 

 into serious consideration, when those who advance these 

 charges relinquish the habit of eating fish when they 

 declare their intention of renouncing beef, mutton, veal, 

 and sucking pig when they shudder, instead of slobber, 

 over crimped salmon and cod, an operation which, to be 

 effective, must be accomplished whilst the fish are alive 

 when they reject stewed eels, because they are invariably 



C 



