THE LATE SALMO SALAE, ESQ. 23 



left-hand division. Here they speedily encoun- 

 tered a terrific mill-wheel, and, dashing on one 

 side, they found their progress stopped by a 

 small net, which being passed under them, 

 they were landed literally by bushels. My 

 informant, who escaped by passing under the 

 mill-wheel at the imminent risk of being 

 crushed to atoms, assured me that the bodies 

 of our betrayed brethren were used as manure! 

 And, degrading as the suggestion is, it seems 

 not impossible, for the numbers taken could 

 not be sold or used for food. The water- 

 bailiffs, a useless crew, who, at the time the 

 river chiefly requires protection, usurp the 

 places of the private keepers connive at or 

 refuse to notice this wholesale destruction, and 

 content themselves by seizing and bringing be- 

 fore the magistrate the wretched urchins who, 

 with a long stick and a long string, a school- 

 boy at one end and the most distant approxi- 

 mation to the semblance of a fly at the other, 

 fill their breeches' pocket with smolts, and run 

 home to boil them for * daddy's supper.' 

 Doubtless many thousands are destroyed in 

 this way, but what is that when our prolific 

 nature is considered ? Every female of our 



