VALUE OF THE SALMON. 19 



with cruelty, except the Vegetarians ; and not even they, 

 for in munching their blades, they destroy myriads of 

 peculiarly innocent and harmless creatures, existing or 

 prospective : you take their life very effectually when 

 you do take the means whereby they live — and their life 

 besides. Just let the young lady who is shocked at the 

 cruelty of angling tell us on what she has been dining. 

 Is it not lamb, the- flesh of the animal which aU the 

 poets, over whom she has such pleasure in sighing, have 

 chosen as the very emblem of innocence and helpless- 

 ness ? " Yes, but I did not kUl it ; I sought no pleasure 

 in the poor thing's death." We join issue with you 

 here, and insist that wherever there is any difference 

 between you, the lamb-eater, and us, the fish-slayers, it 

 is all in our favour. To get that joint of lamb, you 

 hired a coarse and greasy butcher, who, with " unkind 

 clutches" in its fleece, roughly seized the little bleater, 

 ' tied its feet with cruel cords — those feet, you know, that 

 I' gambolled on the hill and frisked over the mead, and so 

 ' forth — dashed it roughly on a stool, and thrust a jagged 

 ' knife through its innocent throat. " Shocking !" Very ; 

 8 and all your doing, Miss ; that is, though you pretend not 

 » to know the history of a leg of lamb, done for your de- 

 \ lectation, and in fulfilment of your orders — " Here comes 

 I the body of Csesar, mourned by Mark Antony, who, 

 i though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the 

 Ji benefit of his dying." In virtue of the prerogative given 

 li men over the fish of the flood — in obedience to that in- 

 istinct to hunt and slay, implanted in aU the sons of 

 s Adam, and, as the chaplain in "Jonathan Wild" justly 

 i remarked of punch, " nowhere spoken against in Scrip- 



