FISHES AND TISHING. 287 



the realm. The inhabitants of Leatherhead will not 

 perforin the duty they owe to their children, and 

 children's children, if they do not defend this right of 

 angling, if it be their right. There are too many 

 instances of persons dressed in a little brief authority, 

 or who have in some way acquired wealth, using or 

 abusing their power, to circumscribe the recreations 

 of the more humble of their fellow mortals, particu- 

 larly in that of angling ; but it must be admitted 

 there are a great number of truly noble and wealthy 

 individuals, who act with every possible urbanity 

 and consideration towards those more humbly cir- 

 cumstanced. 



A most destructive method of catching trout is, I 

 am informed, practised at, and near Leatherhead, 

 when the May-fly is on the water ; it is by a line 

 stretched across the river, to which is affixed a num- 

 ber of hooks, baited with the natural fly. A man on 

 each side of the river lets these baits drop from time 

 to time, and as soon as a fish is hooked, the one 

 poacher, for I can no otherwise denominate them, 

 gives out line, and the other draws it in, and baskets 

 the fish. N"o one under the title of an inhabitant of 

 Leatherhead, should be allowed to plunder and injure 

 the river in that disgraceful manner. Fellows of 

 that class fish for profit only. 



Should the inhabitants of Leatherhead establish 



