2 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 



stand by the flaming forge, or busy shuttle, and are slowly 

 poisoned by the foul, smoke-polluted air, are glad to get away 

 to the river side, and breathe the pure breath of heaven. 

 These are the men who feel the blessings of the river side, 

 and there is no wonder at it, after being " cabin 'd, cribb'd, 

 confined " in unhealthy workshops in the heart of our large 

 towns. These men see the beauty of the country in their 

 brief sojourn by the water side, where country-bred people 

 would fail to observe it. Probably they often wondered why 

 the poet-priest wrote 



" Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood 

 Are clad in living green," 



when there are such beautiful fields, and sweet scenes in this 

 vale of tears, without having to cross the mysterious border- 

 land to find them. What health and vigour again have they 

 not drawn into their lungs, arid how invigorated do they not 

 feel ! and how much better can they not cope with the cares 

 of the world, when they go back to its duties after a day's 

 fishing ! These are the men, I say, who feel the benefits of 

 the water-side, and it is to these thousands of my fellow 

 working-men anglers to whom I am more particularly writing. 

 I am one of yourselves, only my lines have been cast in 

 pleasant places, and a splendid river flows as it were past my 

 door, so that I have had every facility for following my 

 favourite pastime, and I am willing to convey a little of this 

 knowledge to my less fortunate brethren ; in fact, it will be 

 their own faults if they do not know as much as I do after 

 following me carefully through these pages. 



Most works upon angling, I have heard, are nothing but 

 learned discussions on the natural history of the fish (which are 

 all very well in their way), and when our tyro has read them 

 carefully, he does not know then the best way of taking the 

 various fish. Moreover, most works upon angling, as I have 

 before hinted in my preface, treat so fully of salmon, trout, 

 and grayling, that they don't do justice to the so-called 

 coarse fish. Salmon, trout, and grayling are utterly beyond 

 the reach of thousands of our humbler anglers, so I shall 

 content myself by only giving a short chapter on worm or 

 bottom fishing for salmon, as it is practised on the Trent, in 



