Piscator. Say you so? And what maketh that it should be so?
Corydon. Ah, Master, the drainage of Tottenham is turned bodily into the stream, and, in spite of Local Boards, the nuisance continues unaltered.
Piscator. And why right they not this wrong; for, marry, the poor folk here will die, and a pestilence be bred, if ye live not more cleanly.
Corydon. Sir, no man knows this better than the Tottenham Authorities themselves, who cause a horrible, disgusting nuisance to the dwellers on the Lea. They simply sow disease broadcast among thousands of helpless people, to save the expenditure of a certain sum of money.
Piscator. Penny wise, and pound foolish—penny wise, and pound foolish! Soon shall we have the Great Plague here again, and none to blame but the chuckled-headed “Authorities,” my Masters! Come away, Scholars, come away. The silver Lea is bedraggled. ’Tis no place for peaceful ghosts, that would be quiet, and go a-fishing.
[They vanish.
Punch. August, 15, 1885.
The Incompleat Angler, after Master Isaak Walton, by F. C. Burnand, also appeared in Punch. It was afterwards published in book form by Bradbury Agnew & Co., London, in 1876, and again, with numerous illustrations by Harry Furniss, in 1887.
Walton’s Angler Imitated, in several Parts, another parody, appeared in Punch and Judy, London, 1869.
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