42 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 



have been with him in every phase of an angler's experience, 

 and know him to be the peer of the most accomplished and 

 most appreciative of the masters of the art. It has been his 

 good fortune to kill the largest salmon ever taken with a fly 

 on this continent ; and it was because I knew his intense 

 fondness for the pastime that I appreciated how deeply he 

 felt his disappointment when, after his nomination as Yice- 

 President, I tendered him my congratulations, he said: "I 

 thank you, of course, but I am afraid that, for this summer 

 at least, it will keep me away from our grand old river. " A 

 pastime that could be remembered and spoken of under 

 such circumstances must have a strong hold upon one's 

 affections. I am sure he looks forward hopefully to the day 

 when, relieved of the cares of his high office, he will be once 

 more permitted to pitch his tent upon the Restigouche or 

 Cascapedia and angle for salmon. 



Gen. Spinner, ex-United States Treasurer, an octogenarian 

 with whom old Time has dealt very gently, and whose sign 

 manual is a type of his robust integrity and sturdy patriot- 

 ism, is also one of the brotherhood. Long before his home 

 friends sent him to Congress or President Lincoln made him 

 the custodian of the treasury chest of the nation, he had be- 

 come intimate with the best angling waters of Northern 

 New York. With him the pastime was a delight, less be- 

 cause of the fish to be taken than because of the pleasant 

 places to which their capture led him. He was a born 

 botanist as well as a born angler, and during his later years 

 he was quite as happy gathering the rare plants and ferns 

 and flowers he met with in his forest walks as in catching 

 trout. I have journeyed with him through the whole length 

 and breadth of our Northern forest, and I never journeyed 

 with a more happy or entertaining companion. While in 

 Washington through the terrible years of the war, he found 

 needed rest in frequent rambles along the Potomac gathering 

 flowers and angling for bass. His office, from which he 

 distributed thousands of millions of dollars without the loss 

 of a farthing, was a perfect museum of floral and botanical 

 specimens and of all the paraphernalia which go to make up 



