44 THE TROUT ARE RISING 
the occasional tendency to “crab everything,” the 
disposition as it were to walk into the sweetest 
dairy and pronounce some of the freshest milk a 
trifle sour, let us hope that all this is merely a 
passing phase, an aftermath perhaps of the gigantic 
upset caused by the war. 
It seemed strange, though, that so ungracious 
a thing should be said of peaceful fisherfolk, a 
good number of whom that year were officers on 
leave or demobilized. Abuse, working overtime, 
is not likely to be constructive or helpful. The 
shortsightedness of it, too, in this particular 
instance, is obvious, 
In South Africa and New Zealand they use 
their wits to advertise for and to attract visitors, 
even for the trout fishing, and, as regards London, 
South Africa will probably do more advertising of 
its trout fishing. Overseas authorities know that 
the more people they win the more business is 
done in their country. It is the same with villages. 
It means money brought in, it causes interchange 
of ideas. It denotes progress. Angling, too, is 
one of the busy man’s best recreations, whether 
he be rich or poor. Happily, nowhere else in all 
the counties of England and Scotland, where I 
had the good fortune to fish before going over- 
seas again, did I hear any ill-natured comment. 
The one quoted was, in fact, an isolated remark. 
Indeed, in the very village where the stern critic 
lives, the kindly, human welcome shown to 
angling visitors was enough to show that his view 
was shared by no one else, 
