THE JACK. 217 



15th centuries, as seen in the Sloane MSS., are equally- 

 cumbrous. The existence of such instructions and re- 

 cipes is certainly a testimony against most fresh-water 

 fish, which must be very bad material to work upon if 

 they require such laborious manipulation to make them 

 edible. 



I have recently discovered how the Jews deal with 

 jack. They do not stew and serve them, as they 

 do many other fresh-water fish, with port wine and 

 treacle sauce. They boil them with oil and shredded 

 onions in the water, and serve with a sauce composed of 

 lemon and beaten eggs. 



It may not particularly interest my readers to know 

 that I have a special antipathy to jack gastronomically ; 

 but such is the case. It may be accounted for by the 

 fact that many years ago I was asked to try and catch a 

 jack of about four pounds, the sole denizen, at least of 

 his family, of a small garden pond at a friend's house in 

 Devonshire. He destroyed the goldfish and made himself 

 generally unpleasant, but repeated attempts to capture 

 him had failed. On this occasion, however, two or three 

 trails of an Archimedian minnow with which I had taken 

 some trout in the morning drew him from his hiding- 

 place ; he was soon hard and fast on the fatal triangle, 

 and in a very unceremonious manner, without the compli- 

 ment of a landing-net, hauled up on the grass-plot, where 

 I received the congratulations of the assembled family. 

 With one voice it was determined that he should be 

 cooked for dinner ; and of course every one was obliged 

 to eat a bit and pretend he liked it. But oh ! the taste 

 of that jack ! I have never forgotten it. " The touch of 

 a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still," 



