I say, what is Izaak Walton’s cruelty to this, and to many another such perpetration on the part of the tender and sentimental? What is it to the grinding and oppression of the poor that is every day going on in society,--to the driving of wheels and the urging of steam-engines, matched against whose iron power thousands daily waste their vital energies? What is it to the laying on of burdens of expense and trouble by the exactions of law, of divinity, of custom,--burdens grievous to be borne, and which they who impose them, will not so much as touch with one of their little fingers? They sit at home and turn an easy wheel, And set sharp racks to work to pinch and peel.--_John Keats._ These things are done and suffered by human beings, and then go the very doers of these things, and cry out mightily against the angler for pricking the gristle of a fish’s mouth! I do not mean to advocate cruelty--far from it! I would have all men as gentle and humane as possible; nor do I argue that because the world is full of cruelty, it is any reason that more cruelty should be tolerated: but I mean to say, that it is a reason why there should not be so much permission to the greater evils, and so much clamour against the less. Is there more suffering caused by angling than by taking fishes by the net? Not a thousandth,--not a ten thousandth part! Where one fish is taken with a hook, it may be safely said that a thousand are taken with the net: for daily are the seas, lakes, and rivers swept with nets; and cod, haddock, halibut, salmon, crabs, lobsters, and every species of fish that supplies our markets, are gathered in thousands and ten thousands--to say nothing of herrings and pilchards by millions. Over these there is no lamentation; and yet their sufferings are as great--for the suffering does not consist so much in the momentary puncture of a hook, as in the dying for lack of their native element. Then go these tender-hearted creatures and feast upon turtles that have come long voyages nailed to the decks of ships in living agonies; upon crabs, lobsters, prawns, and shrimps, that have been scalded to death; and thrust oysters alive into fires; and fry living eels in pans, and curse poor anglers before their gods for cruel monsters, and bless their own souls for pity and goodness, forgetting all the fish-torments they have inflicted!