114 SALMON AND TROUT. 



ambition meet in the presence of beauty to try who is the best 

 man. From this category no one who has watched the keen 

 interest with which the spoils and incidents of the day's chase 

 are discussed at the dinner table, and the number and magni- 

 tude of each man's ' bag ' appraised, can except the ' knights of 

 the angle.' There are indeed already not a few angling cham- 

 pions of the gentler sex who now enter the lists, especially 

 as fly-fishers, and amongst whom the fair daughters of a well- 

 known noble Duke have acquired enviable fame. 



We are not all, however, so lucky as to have a salmon 

 river at our door, and I have often thought, watching some 

 modern Dame Juliana punt fishing under the dip of a Thames 

 chestnut tree in August, or later in the autumn sending her 

 spinning bait skimming into the foam below Hurley weir, how 

 much of pleasure, now lost to most of us, is gained by the man 

 whose wife takes heartily to fishing or hunting or whatever other 

 field sport he is devoted to. In this way she becomes not only 

 his helpmate at home, but his ' chum ' and true comrade when 

 on his rambles by flood and field, or, rifle in hand, mounting 

 the ' imminent deadly breach ' which is shortly to witness the 

 campaign against chamois or red deer. 



Not that shooting is a sport by any means so naturally 

 fitted to women as fishing. Their figure makes the handling 

 of the gunstock always rather awkward, and the recoil is some- 

 times apt — unless very light charges are used — to be dan- 

 gerous. But to fishing there is no drawback, unless, indeed, 

 it be the petticoats with which some thick-ankled leader of 

 fashion in bygone times has managed to cramp and disfigure 

 one of the prettiest parts of the human form. No skirts will 

 vex the tameless ankles of our women of the future. Already 

 there is a marked and healthy improvement visible in the 

 length of the dress, and women need no longer draggle about 

 behind them a ridiculous and often muddy train, which if it 

 does not do duty for a road-sweeper cannot certainly be shown 

 to subserve any other useful purpose. 



The influence of dress has been recognised by many philo- 



