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Since President GRANT's famous trouting excursion to Pennsylvania,
piscatorial pastimes appear to have become quite the thing among the
magnates of the Government. The following item from Washington, cut from
a morning paper, reads very like a bit of gossip from the history of the
Court of CHARLES II:
"General SPINNER and some of his female Treasury clerks went to the
Great Falls to-day to catch black bass."
Redolent of all that is rural and sweet, is the idea of SPINNER,
surrounded by a bevy of his "female Treasury clerks," reclining upon a
shady rock just over the Great Falls. We behold SPINNER, with our mind's
eye, "fixing" a bait for one of the lovely young fisherwomen, while half
a dozen of the others are engaged in fanning him and "Shoo-ing" the
flies away from his expressive nose. The picture is a very pretty one,
recalling to mind some brilliant pastoral by WATTEAU. There are numerous
accessories arranged in the foreground, such as hampers of cold chicken
pie, hams of the richest pink and yellow hues, and baskets of champagne,
and it would be interesting to know who pays for all. "Spinning a
minnow," as the anglers term it, for black bass, is a very appropriate
pastime for SPINNER, but, for a fresh-water fisherman, there is
something very Salt Lakey in that arrangement regarding the "female
Treasury clerks."
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