So offensive has this custom been considered by the English, that a representation was made to the civic authorities, and some change for the better was promised; but whether it has been or will be such as will adequately meet and remove all the evil complained of, or whether it will simply remove them out of sight, I cannot say. It is most uncomfortable to think, were there no other objection, that one’s clothes may be washed in the same water as that in which, it may be, the clothes of those who have been suffering from disease are being soaked. Towels and sheets have, when fresh, a most disagreeable soapy smell. Linen articles of wearing apparel, however, seem to come home remarkably pure, and it is to be hoped that they are, after the first bleaching, put through clean water. Buttons, however, soon get loose after the violent treatment to which linens are subjected.[25] * * * * * Another grand pursuit of the Mentonnais is that of fishing. Two or more fishing boats are engaged almost every morning in this occupation. A boat takes out the net a long distance, when it is dropped in the water. By two long lines the nets are then laboriously drawn in upon the shore by from twelve to twenty men or women. A great deal of this labour might easily be saved by the use of windlasses. When the net comes near the shore, a crowd of visitors and other idle persons surround the fishermen to witness the result. Often I have seen the net pulled up without a single fish in it; at other times, a small basketful of little fish which they call sardines. Sometimes a few larger fish, a dozen or half a dozen mackerel, may be taken; but at other times I have seen little more brought up after all this waste of exertion and time than a quantity of minute fry about an inch or so long, the young of fish which might otherwise have attained maturity. The result is miserable, and one could wish not merely that the men were better employed, but that there might be some stoppage put to a mode of catching which must prove so injurious to the fishings. Is it not likely that a deep–sea line, baited with so many hooks (such as our fishermen use), would take large fish and leave the young to develop? But the fishermen have no doubt fished for two thousand years or more in the same way, and could not possibly take in the thought of any novelty; and, patient as they are, one would wish to see this patience change to enterprising and inventive vigour. It is, however, to be kept in view that the sardines for which they lay their snares may apparently be caught only on the surface, as when there is a surf falling on the shore I have seen the nets dragged into the boats upon the sea, and many sardines thereby caught. In stormy weather, a rare occurrence, the fishing is altogether stopped. Judging from what I have seen, I should say it was unlikely that the fishermen earn more than the merest pittance (a few pence a day) by their calling, in pursuing