60 BY ME 'A DO W AND STREAM. 



Possibly the irreverent scoffer might retort that the 

 good old master would only eat chub when he 

 couldn't catch trout. 



MEADOW PLACARDS. 



The Hon. Treasurer of the Fly Fishers' Club drew 

 attention, at their annual dinner, to these flaunting 

 advertisements, which, as he said, "blot the scenery." 

 I confess that I approach this subject with an open 

 mind ; doubtless there is much to be said against 

 them, and I suppose not much in their favour. Let 

 us imagine our good friends Piscator and Venator 

 taking shelter from the passing showers which * ' fell 

 gently upon the teeming earth, giving a sweeter 

 smell to the lovely flowers that adorn these verdant 

 meadows," and then finding themselves suddenly con- 

 fronted by a large square red placard informing them 

 that Beecham's pills were worth a guinea a box ! In 

 those good old times advertisements in this attractive 

 style were quite unheard of. Surely such an appari- 

 tion would have been to them what a red cloak is to 

 a bull, and yet at this end of the nineteenth century I 

 have seen a bull rubbing his shoulders against the 

 supports of such a glaring red show board with calm- 

 ness and indifference. Surely a bull of the seventeenth 

 century would have madly dashed it to pieces ; that 

 was the age for contemplation, this the age for adver- 

 tisement ; the times are changed, and we are changed 

 with them. Why strain at these gnats in our fields, 

 and swallow the camels that adorn every brick wall 

 in our cities? What are Beecham's pills compared 

 with that flaming picture of a seductive nymph light 



