NO MERCY TO POACHERS. 79 



shut up the year long in the stalls of labour, where 

 even a rat, though fed to the full, would tire, and eat 

 his way out through a deal board!" We look upon 

 outdoor recreations for the labouring classes as de- 

 serving of all encouragement ; and when streams and 

 canals, lakes and rivers, come to be amply supplied 

 with variety of choice fish, we hope that proprietors of 

 fishings will throw them open to all rod-fishers every 

 Saturday throughout the season, in compensation for the 

 rigorous preservation of the parr. The people's natural 

 love of sport will thus be gratified without incurring the 

 stigma of poaching; and all classes having an interest in 

 the preservation of the fish, they will be allowed to breed 

 unmolested. It will be reckoned shameful to kill them 

 out of season ; and, public opinion being on the side of 

 the law, no mercy will be shown to the poacher who 

 spears or nets salmon on the spawning-bed; so that 

 never again shall we hear of a merciless slayer of 

 mother fishes confessing before a parliamentary commit- 

 tee that, at one hauling-place on the Tweed, his brother 

 one night netted upwards of 400 spawning salmon and 

 grilses ; which, we add for the gratification of our 

 Scottish friends, were sent to Edinburgh as kippers, 

 the red colour, which looked so charming, arising from 

 the liberal use of saltpetre ! 



