The Democratic Age; Statesmanship, Science, Art, Literature, and Progress

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1858 Excerpt: ... that will arrest conflagration in less than five minutes, and compensate for every life whenever, wherever, and however it may be lost. TO THE SPORTSMEN OF AMERICA. The interests of sporting, sportsmen, and game, will be fully treated in this Journal. The next Number will contain the Game-Laws of New York, and perhaps of some other States. These laws are made for the benefit of all--every community being interested in the preservation of its game. We shall endeavor to furnish from able hands interesting information on these subjects in every issue. In this Number we merely offer an article on--TEOUTTNG. Trout Fishing has been a favorite amusement with men of genius and taste at all periods. It was practised by the Greeks, the Romans, and other ancient nations, and during the Middle Ages we find traces of its cultivation. It has, however, been reduced to the completeness of an art in our own times, or within the last two centuries. Isaac Walton is known throughout the civilized world as the Corypheus of trouters, and his book is to this day as universally received as authority, as Murray is for the rules of English Grammar. There are multitudes of persons who have affected to sneer at trout fishing as an elegant and exciting amusement; and we have seen not a few words of bitterness written against what has been called the false and affected enthusiasm of the amusement of catching trout. In some instances, we doubt not, those who have spoken thus slightingly of this elegant art, have been truly unconscious of the pleasure it is capable of communicating. So there have been men who have railed against poetry and music; and we have known of individuals of no little culture who seemed to be as insensible to the exhilarating effects of angling as they were to the...