FROM COTTON TO STEWART. 87 



Fishing in 1889 gave the splice its quietus. The 

 great evil of the splice (beyond its troublesome- 

 ness to adjust) is that nothing ever invented 

 prevents it working slightly loose after a long 

 period of fishing : nothing, that is, except the 

 glueing together of the tapered ends, when the 

 rod becomes one of a single piece. 



All this is anticipating slightly. To go back 

 to the time I am describing, the ferrules then 

 used were of the simple kind, and to prevent 

 them slipping round every well-made rod had 

 a flat wire loop fixed immediately above and 

 below each ferrule, under which a bit of string 

 was easily run for two or three turns of a 

 figure-of-eight after the rod was put up. This 

 prevented the joint slipping round. The lock- 

 fast and suction joints now so common came 

 later. 



It is a curious fact that ferruled rods are 

 actually older than spliced, for the rod 

 described in the Treatise is a jointed rod in two 

 pieces, ferruled with iron or tin : but the 

 jointed rod did not long survive, and the rod 

 in one piece was the usual thing in the 

 sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; next 

 came the spliced rod and lastly the ferruled. 



Silk lines are first mentioned in Nobbes' 

 Compleat Trailer 1682, and came gradually 

 into use. But hair lines long survived, for I 

 can recollect their still being used by the old- 

 fashioned at the end of last century, and no 

 doubt some could be found even now. The silk 



