to feel about as much anxiety about her as, years ago, I and others felt if Gosden, the yeoman pricker, got one from some raw brute he was riding into a hunter. "Oh! it is only George," would be the reply, if some one was seen down. So, in later years, it was with Dick Christian in Leicestershire: not but that both men were esteemed and favourites with all the field; but they were so in the habit of getting all sorts of falls from all sorts of horses, that it was considered as a matter of course they were not hurt when these little catastrophes occurred. I should feel the same towards the lady who has lately figured in The Field newspaper under the sobriquet of "Helen," and eke little more for another lady who, it should seem, is quite fascinated by the account Helen gives of her exploits; but if the fair Fanny is this, let me advise her to keep such sentiments to herself; one Helen is quite enough to disgust mankind. Ladies' horses sometimes suffer from neglect, and from the want of knowing what is necessary to their comfort and welldoing; they also sometimes suffer from being tasked, till distress is occasioned; but I am happy to say that where such may have been the case, it has proceeded from the want of knowing what distresses or injures, and what does not. The woman who would ill-use a horse would ill-use a child, if it were under her control. Let ladies be assured that their being determined and fearless on horseback is not an attribute that raises them in the estimation of their own sex or ours. We may admire a Joan of Arc while on the ramparts, but we do not want or admire Joans of Arc either in the hunting-field or by the furze side, and I rather think no man ventured on Joan for a wife. Be a man as amiable as he will, or as highly gifted as regards talent, if we know he is a coward we must look on him with most sovereign contempt; be a woman as beautiful as the fabled Houri, with all the wit in the world, a masculine turn and a want of the softness of her sex neutralize all her other attractive attributes: thank God! we rarely meet with such.

FISHING UP AND DOWN

STREAM.

Mr. Stewart's dictum in his "Practical Angler," that no one who wishes for a full basket would ever do otherwise than fish up-stream, has given rise to so many discussions among fishermen, on the up and down question, that, as an old disciple of the gentle art, I have been induced to dot down a few arguments pro and con., as the practice must indeed be most vexatious, when, in contradiction to Mr. Stewart, we have the gentleman who in your Magazine is writing A Month's Fishing Tour in Ireland (and who, no doubt, is also a good fisherman) telling us that he always did and always will fish down stream, and, in fact, going so far as to add (which struck us as rather foolish), that he one day had bad sport because the wind blew up-stream, and so spoilt his fishing, he being too old a "down" fisherman to give in to the wind, which I should have thought he might have done, without in the least prejudicing his opinion. As then I think that a question of this sort cannot be

too much ventilated, I beg to be allowed to add my mite to the arguments. I am no theorist, nor do I think that, beyond Izaak Walton (whose fishing lessons I am afraid I often skip), a review of Mr. Stewart's work-which I have ordered from England, and a few, very few, letters of "Ephemera" in Bell's Life-I have ever read any work purporting to teach one how to kill fish; but I have studied on the river's side, under divers excellent masters, and have had twenty years' practice in most of the rivers of Hants, Dorset, Wilts, and Devon; so that I have, I think, some ground on which to found an opinion.

Of course, in anything I may say, I refer only to fast-running shallow streams; as in rivers like most of those in Hants and Wilts, which are deep and sluggish, it is wind, not current, that the fisherman studies, and then the object is to drop a fly gently under the lee bank, or, as I have found a not unkilling plan, on the lee bank, and let it, by a turn of the wrist, drop just over the nose of that large fish which, with dorsal fin out of water, is sucking down every fly as it sails onward with the stream. In these waters, then, I conceive " up and down can have no great interest; but in the West, where we have stickles, and pools, and shallows in regular rotation, it becomes a question of great importance as to which method is the most destructive. My own opinion is, that by fishing up-stream you will move most fish-by fishing down you will kill more; and as killing, not raising, is my object, I always (cæteris paribus) fish down. The only advantages that I know in fishing upstream, is in being unseen by your fish, and in not disturbing your unfished water when killing a hooked fish-both I own great objects, for many and many the good fish have I lost in trying to kill him upstream-so as not to disturb his friend feeding below; and many a good wake have I, to my great disgust, seen going away right ahead of me, as I came down to a favourite pool, the scaly monster having seen me long before I was within throw of him. Still, as a rule, I say, and for reasons that I will give by-and-bye, I fish down-stream. Of course, when the water is very low and very fine, in July or August for instance, fishing up-stream is the only way to fill a basket; down, I will defy the best fisherman to cover a fish without being seen, whereas it is extraordinary how close you can approach to him up-stream without his being aware of your presence. In Devon I fish a great deal with a minnow; and in the very brightest days (which I think the best) I have frequently, standing in the water, moved a fish above me, taken him close to my legs, and hooked him below me, thus showing how little they care for a stationary object in the water below them. Mr. Briggs, too, would find that if he walked up the middle of the stream, throwing his brandling before him, he would save all the bother of stealing up, on his hands and knees, taking off his hat, stalking a pool behind a bush or a bunch of reeds, or any other of those vagaries which are very amusing in Punch, but not (in my idea at least) over and above sportsmanlike; nor would he only save all this, but he would kill as many if not more fish. In bright weather my plan is to go to the woods, should there be any walk right up the middle of the stream, and fish with a light rod and short line, close ahead of me as I go; I say a short line, because in the first place I am among trees, and, moreover, when you are up to your middle or thereabouts in water, you must kill your fish quickly if you wish to kill them at all,

C C

So much for up-stream. Now for down. "You kill more fish down stream," is what I have to maintain. Now, in the first place, I hold that you can give your fly, in fishing down-stream, a much more natural movement than you can up, whatever Mr. Stewart may say to the contrary. Look at a hare's-ear, or my pet blue-upright, in his course downstream; he does not float motionless onward with the tide, but every now and then, as if to show that he is a creature full of life, and merely floating downwards because it suits his lazy purpose, he hops (scarcely flies) some four or five inches up-stream, and then again settles down at his ease, for a foot or two, when he repeats his saltatory motion. Well, what do you do? You, fishing down-stream, jerk your rod, and your bob-fly at least performs that very evolution, and your other flies, though they do not quit the surface, still give a kick an inch or two upwards, just as we can fancy a half-drowned fly to do. Whereas, up-stream your jerk not only pulls your flies faster than the stream runs-a mechanical impossibility-but also, which is my great objection to up-fishing, it slackens your line in the water. This slackening of your line is, I think, of itself enough reason why you kill less fish up-stream than down. In a stream of any rapidity your line comes down upon you so fast, that either you have a slack line, which prevents your striking with any degree of certainty, or you must not out-drag your flies, which I think very objectionable, but you are also continually casting, thus tiring yourself unnecessarily, and, moreover, losing a great deal of time when your flies are in the air, instead of on the water-in fact, I should say that in a fast-running stream this continual casting loses at least ten minutes in an hour, as compared with a down-fisherman, who lets his flies continue their semicircular course from the further bank right across to his own; and this, I consider to be no slight objection to fishing up-stream. Again, your collar, and perhaps parts, of your line, in fishing up-stream, pass over your fish's head before your flies come in view, and although these may be as fine as Chevalier can furnish, still in a well-whipped stream (and any muff can kill fish in a preserve) there is, I fancy, something very destructive to piscine appetite in the sight of a line. Again, as to striking, did you ever watch a fish take a fly? I do not refer to the sucking dorsal-fin-showing animal-nothing can miss him; but a fish which comes up at you with a rush, from mid-water? He takes his prey, and turns right down again with it to his home. Wait till he has turned, and then strike, and instead of pulling the fly out of his mouth, as Mr. Stewart says you will, you put it just into his bony jaw-as pretty a place, barring the roots of the tongue, as ever I wish to plant a little bit of Limerick wire in. Again, another advantage is that, fishing down, you cover your water much more evenly; in fishing up, your line naturally floats straight down upon you, so that you have to make a dozen casts to fish one width; whereas, in fishing down your flies travel over every inch of water, and you can, to a certain extent, arrest their progress anywhere for a second or so, which in fishing up is quite impossible. Again, early in the season, as an old fishing ally of mine (now one of the first Sutherlandshire salmon-killers) used to say, the fish have not dash enough in them to catch a fly going fast down stream; they will rise eagerly enough, but rise continually an inch above your fly, not ever giving you a chance of hooking their jowl; whereas, by fishing down you can poise your fly over a rising trout's

nose, and he must be very dull indeed if he rise short or miss it then.

These are a few ideas of mine on "up and down" fishing, and, like the sexagenarian Irish tourist, I shall continue to fish down (when I get the chance) until Mr. Stewart, or some other such master of the art, gives me better reasons con. than I have advanced pro. Would that, like the Tourist, I could put my theory into practice. But, alas! the salmo ferox is here an unknown quantity; fly-taking grey mullet there are, many and large but I look at my English flies, and sigh to think that the welfare of my country demands my presence in this Ionian island, instead of in the woody glens of dear South Devon.

Corfu, September 25th.

THE SOUNDNESS OF THOROUGH-BRED STOCK.

The following is from the Mark Lane Express report of the recent meeting of the Irish Agricultural Society at Waterford. An important point or two are raised, that may be well worth some further discussion:

A Suffolk stallion, bred by Mr. Kersey, of Farmingston, Suffolk, and sold for three hundred, took the first prize for cart-horses. He was liked none the worse here for being a little darker in colour than what the fancy runs on. A Clydesdale horse took the second, and the entry waз made up of all sorts and sizes. Three of the young stallions of any breed for agricultural purposes" were got by race-horses out of half-bred mares, two by Great Heart and one by Safeguard! With square tails, blood heads, and clean legs, they looked a deal more like answering to the cheer of a huntsman than starting for another bout at the 'Gee-whut!' of a ploughman.

"But, if at best your Irishman has only a faint idea of a cart-horse, he has a tolerably good notion of him "for other purposes." Year after year have we had to ponder on this, and to wonder why there were no premiums for hunter stallions and riding horses. At Waterford, mainly, as we believe, through the exertions of the secretary, Captain Croker, a series of special premiums were offered with this object. At no cost to the society, fifty pounds and a gold medal were to be given to 'the best weight-carrying thorough-bred stallion;' thirty and a silver medal to the second-best; with twenty and a bronze medal to the third. There were similar premiums for hunting mares. This was the first year of the experiment, and it resulted in the best show of thoroughbred horses we ever saw brought together on such an occasion. Let us name a few of the thirty entered: Stotforth, The Knight of Gwynne, Thistle-Whipper, War Hawk, Heapy, Glentilt, Barbarian, Lord George, Red Hart, Great Heart, Chit Chat, Dey of Algiers, Kilmoyler, and Cattonite. We have only to regret the award will not tell equally well. The judges, all Englishmen, gave in their original decree, pronouncing Red Hart entitled to the first premium, Knight of Gwynne to the second, and Barbarian to the third. Then, however, the veterinary

surgeon, Mr. Farrell, steps in, and at once annuls this. He declares Red Hart and Knight of Gwynne to be unsound, the former from ringbone, and the latter as a roarer. The judges have to go over their work again, when they place the Dey of Algiers first, Barbarian second, and another of Lord Waterford's horses third. It is almost needless to say that popular opinion went almost entirely with the first award, and none were more dissatisfied than the judges themselves. In evidence of this we may cite the following note or protest which they handed in previous to leaving Waterford :

"Weight-carrying Hunters and Mares: The Judges beg to state they have had much difficulty in deciding in these two classes; as the best horses have been pronounced unsound by the veterinary surgeon, and so excluded from taking any of the prizes.-Signed, CHARLES GARFIT, on behalf of the Judges.'

"Lord Besborough and Mr. Gregory, who were at the meeting, testified that Red Hart's 'ring-bone' was the result of an accident in running, when he put his foot in a hole and broke down. A very serious question is raised by this proceeding, that the national societies cannot too soon bring to a hearing and an adjustment-Did not the veterinary surgeon exceed the duties required of him? Is every stallion to be pronounced to be-hereditary-unsound, that has broken down, or turned roarer ? And if so, how many sound horses have we amongst us? The same sort of thing our readers may remember as having occurred at the Louth show. We repcat, the sooner the point is entertained the better; as we know of nothing so likely to interfere with one of the most interesting and improving features in the meetings of agricultural societies."

SMART NOTIONS.

[FROM THE AMERICAN PAPERS.]

FORENSIC ELOQUENCE.-To a Judge: "Your honour sits high on the adorable seat of justice, like the Asiatic rock of Gibraltar; while the eternal streams of justice, like the cadaverous clouds of the valley, flow meandering at your feet."

The Minnesota Pioneer gives us a specimen of strong writing. After describing a mischievous trick of an "infernal scoundrel" who had poured vitriol on a horse, the editor says-" He deserves to have red hot lava poured into his ears, and to have his eyes poulticed with lunar caustic."

"Forsyth county, Ohio, has neither a rum-shop, a prison, nor a pauper.

"They have got a great aristocrat in Troy. He wont even smile, for fear people should think he was getting too familiar with himself."

"A bookseller, who hung out a placard of Yeast,' by the author of 'Alton Locke,' had two applications for it the other day from ancient females, domestically inclined, and bearing tin pails: one asked for a pint, and the other for a pennyworth."