32 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK 



them. Sometimes the party was convivial, and provided with 

 a junk bottle of what they believed to be old rye. 



Before the gas-works had destroyed the fishing in the 

 Schuylkill, I frequently observed a solitary individual of this 

 species, wending his way to the river on Sunday mornings, 

 with a long reed-pole on his shoulder, and in his hand a tin 

 kettle of shad-roe; and his ''prog," consisting of hard-boiled 

 eggs and crackers and cheese, tied up in a cotton bandana 

 handkerchief. Towards nightfall ''he might have been seen" 

 (as James the novelist says of the horseman), trudging home- 

 ward with a string of Pan Eock and White Perch, or 

 " Catties" and Eels, his trowsers and coat sleeves well plastered 

 with his unctuous bait, suggesting the idea of what, in vulgar 

 parlance, might be called " a very nasty man." 



But let us not turn up our scientific noses at this humble 

 brother ; nor let the home missionary or tract distributor rate 

 him too severely, if he should meet with him in his Sunday 

 walks ; for who can tell what a quiet day of consolation it 

 has been to him ; he has found relief from the toils and cares 

 of the week, and perhaps from the ceaseless tongue of his 

 shrewish "old woman." If his sport has been good, he 

 follows it up the next day, and keeps " blue Monday." 



We have seen some very respectable gentlemen in our day 

 engaged in fishing with shad-roe at Fairmount Dam. The 

 bar even had its representative, in one of our first criminal 

 court lawyers. He did not "dress the character" with as 

 much discrimination as when he lectured on Shakspeare, for 

 he always wore his blue coat with gilt buttons : he did not 

 appear to be a successful angler. " Per contra" to this was a 

 wealthy retired merchant, who used to astonish us with his 

 knack of keeping this difficult bait on his hooks, and his skill 

 in hooking little White Perch. Many a troller has seen him 

 sitting bolt upright in the bow of his boat on a cool morning 



