252 FISHES A2?D FISHING. 



barges, which were of double the tonnage of the 

 others, was very difficult ; I have seen eighteen horses 

 or more employed to draw one up against the then 

 rapid stream. The number of locks and weirs since 

 then erected by the City are five or six ; but what the 

 tolls taken by the corporation amount to, is probably 

 only known to their own officers. 



It is not much above, if so much as an hundred 

 years ago, since men were employed to tow barges 

 up the river Thames ; amongst the cosmoramic views 

 at the Polytechnic, there used to be one of Windsor 

 Castle, with several men towing a barge. How they 

 managed in flood time I cannot imagine ; the barges 

 frequently could not work before the erection of the 

 locks ; sometimes there was too much water, and 

 sometimes too little ; during floods, many horses and 

 some of their drivers were occasionally drowned ; and 

 in summer barges were often aground, and could not 

 move before a quantity of water, which was penned 

 back at Boulter's Lock, was suddenly let down, and 

 this was called a ^^ fiashP It always came down of 

 a Sunday afternoon, and sometimes also on a Thurs- 

 day, when the craft that were aground floated, and 

 all was bustle and hurry to get down or up the river. 

 I have, when a boy, walked down to Sunbury, on 

 purpose to have a ride home in the barge belonging 

 to a relative : the burthen of the barge was stated as 



