POACHERS ROB ALL CLASSES. 153 



another piece of territory where the trout streams are com- 

 paratively so numerous and productive as they are through- 

 out Long Island. It is scarcely possible to travel a mile in 

 any direction without crossing a trout stream, whether from 

 Coney Island to Southampton on the south side, or from 

 Newtown to Greenport on the north side ; and when taking 

 into account the necessity for a kind of recreation which shall 

 not be too violent for the thousands of debilitated citizens 

 who are pent up in squares of brick and mortar, and engaged 

 at sedentary occupations, it is impossible to estimate in dol- 

 lars the value of a recreation which, while it is sufficiently 

 free, airy, and attractive to innate the lungs, jog the biliary 

 organs, and unbend the mind, is not so difficult to pursue as 

 to prevent the most delicate in physique from enjoying it. 

 The value of the Long Island trout streams to New York City 

 is inestimable, for each one of them is approachable by rail- 

 road in a few hours. In a hygienic sense, therefore, they are 

 above price. How deep must therefore be the turpitude of 

 the crime of that vagrant class of vagabonds who recklessly 

 rob the streams of their life, beauty, and means of recreation 

 to the overworked citizen who depends on angling instead 

 of physic for restoring his waning health of body and decreas- 

 ing vigor of mind ! 



Streams in New Jersey and Connecticut, and those west 

 of the Hudson to the Delaware Rivers, and far beyond in both 

 this state and Pennsylvania, contain trout, and many of them 

 are well stocked. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a stream 

 within a radius of a hundred miles from the city of New 

 York which has not more or less trout in it. The paper-mills, 

 railroads, bleaching-fields, chemicals of acids an.d gases, lime, 

 manures, and numerous kinds of manufactories which cast 

 their choking and poisonous debris and nitrations into the 

 streams, have not proved sufficient to depopulate them of 

 their speckled beauties ; and were it not for the poacher, who 

 stops not at nets, spears, snares of singular device, killing the 

 trout by liming the streams and poisoning them with coculus 



