452 CHINESE FISHING 
parallels—but of his Angling is morally edifying, piscatorially 
instructive, and is possibly responsible for the rise in Great 
Britain and America of the barbless school of anglers. As 
yet its pupils, despite the missionary zeal of Mr. Rhead, are 
scattered few and far between. The limitation of their 
numbers can doubtless be ascribed to their introspective and 
becoming fear lest the ‘“ real attraction,” which, according to 
a Chinese classic, was in our hero’s case not his straight iron 
but his innate virtue, should with them, either from sparsity 
or lowness of power, lack the requisite magnetism ! 
But vetournons a@ nos potssons! King Wén, the founder of 
the Chou Dynasty, and one of the great sages—whence, perhaps, 
his intelligent annexation of Chiang, for all Anglers ex necessitate 
are, or should be, also sages—comes across our hero fishing with 
a piece of straight iron instead of a barbed hook. This tackle, 
he explains to the unrecognised monarch, is based on principles 
dear to our Conscientious Objectors, viz. voluntaryism—“ for 
only volunteers would suffer themselves to be caught thus- 
wise ’”’—and of mercy—“ since it gave all those who wished a 
chance of escape.” 
Wen, from his many campaigns, observed much and missed 
little. He noticed the full creel. Thence, as a Sage would, 
deduced that since a virtuous man’s wants are always satisfied, 
Chiang must be just such a man. He felt instinctively that 
here indeed was the statesman whom his grandsire—observe 
the ancestor-reverence !—would have selected. So without 
more ado or any references as to character, Wén carried Chiang 
off, whether with or without the full creel history deigns no 
word, to his palace, installed him as Viceroy, and ever after 
termed him “ my Grandfather’s Desire,’’ a sobriquet which, 
however well meant, our philosophic piscator—he was only 
eighty when caught straight-ironing—must at times have 
resented. 
Not dissimilar in method if unlike in emolument, stands 
out the historical (for he shone in the eighth century A.D.) 
Chang Chih-ho, that “ glittering example of humorous romantic 
detachment and carelessness of public opinion, who spent his 
1 See H. A. Giles, Chinese Biographical Dict., 1898, p. 135, No. 343. 
