168 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



like one, does not visit the land, I am much mis- 

 taken. 



Distracted, dismiited, disestablished as men and 

 religions have been and are, — truckled to as crime 

 is, and bold as sectarianism has become, what Avith 

 bad government, bad farming, worse speaking, and 

 foreign, plague-like poisonous introductions, which 

 Nature — hitherto dear, prolific, and patient Nature 

 — now seems violently to repudiate, — I hold the 

 United Kingdom to be far from happy, and, indeed, 

 in a dangerous state, out of which it is very difficult 

 for the wisest statesman who has since come to the 

 reins of office to see his way. 



To return once more to the food that might be 

 grown in the waste waters. I see, in one of the 

 letters published, that the dace is classed as a 

 fish of the same indifferent quality as the roach. 

 Now, the dace is freer from bones than the roach, 

 and a much better flavoured fish. The gudgeon 

 ranks as the freshwater smelt, and the snig is the 

 most delicious of eels — an eel, in fact, in its 

 best season. Chub are much about the same in 

 bones and flavour as the carp, but the chub is 

 not what Ls called ^^ muddy." The bream is a 

 very good fish when in season, and the bony back 



