214 FISHING GOSSIP. 



lishing angling books, which, whilst nominally ap- 

 pealing to fishermen as books of guidance or instruc- 

 tion, are practically little more than elaborate 

 catalogues designed to puff off their writer's wares. 

 The offensiveness of this practice is increased when 

 noms de plume are assumed which mislead the public 

 as to the real authorship of the books. Our attention 

 has been called to this particular description of 

 puff by reading The Modern Angler, etc. etc., by 

 " Otter," which is published by Alfred and Son, 

 Moorgate Street, Alfred and Son being, as we 

 understand, also the authors of the same. This 

 Modern Angler, which it is hardly necessary to 

 say has no claim to be considered as in any sense a 

 literary production, is merely a rechaufft of the most 

 trite and catchpenny of the common angling manuals, 

 illustrated by neat diagrams of quill-floats and other 

 equally mysterious paraphernalia of the angling craft. 

 But to this of course we have no right to obj ect. Every- 

 one is at perfect liberty to believe that his mission is 

 to write a book or two if he likes and to publish 

 them, if he so pleases, even if his title to do so be no 

 better than that to which Hudibras refers when he 

 says 



" Tho' he that has but impudence 

 To all things has a fair pretence." 



Nay, he may even do so on the self-sacrificing prin- 

 ciple which, so far as we know, was not found strong 



