COMPETITIVE ANGLERS 197 



street to be foul. If the river is polluted, it is 

 owing to the act of a manufacturer or the neglect of 

 a municipality. In either case, said the * organised 

 anglers,' the power that insists on our streets being 

 clean should enforce ' Mundella's Act ' for the purifica- 

 tion of rivers. It is not fair to ask the contemplative 

 man, who is generally far from affluent, to interrupt 

 his contemplation in order to sue an opulent owner 

 of dyeworks or a powerful corporation. 



Bad as things are in Yorkshire, as any traveller 

 by the Midland or Great Northern lines may see for 

 himself, they cannot be in the last stage of hopeless- 

 ness, seeing that a single town in that county boasts 

 of seven thousand avowed anglers. If there is a 

 great deal to restore, there is also a great deal to 

 preserve ; it ought to be done ; it is worth encoun- 

 tering a great deal of worry and expense to save 

 such a means of recreation for an artisan population. 



LXI 



If the truth must be told, these Yorkshire anglers 

 are competitive rather than contempla- competitive 

 tive, as any one may see by glancing Anglers 

 down the columns of the Fishing Gazette. Angling 



