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. ete, 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 réchauffé 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 object. 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 
