Fishing.—­There is very little scope for the practice of Isaac Walton’s craft near to Birmingham, and lovers of the gentle art must go farther afield to meet with good sport.  The only spots within walking distance are the pools at Aston Park and Lower Grounds, at Aston Tavern, at Bournbrook Hotel (or, as it is better known, Kirby’s), and at Pebble Mill, in most of which may be found perch, roach, carp, and pike.  At Pebble Mill, March 20, last year, a pike was captured 40 inches long, and weighing 22 lbs., but that was a finny rarity, and not likely to be met with there again, as the pool (so long the last resort of suicidally inclined mortals) is to be filled up.  A little farther off are waters at Sarehole, at Yardley Wood, and the reservoir at King’s Norton, but with these exceptions anglers must travel to their destinations by rail.  There is good fishing at Sutton Coldfield, Barnt Green (for reservoir at Tardebigge), Alcester, Shustoke, Salford Priors, and other places within a score of miles, but free fishing nowhere.  Anyone desirous of real sport should join the Birmingham and Midland Piscatorial Association (established June, 1878), which rents portions of the river Trent and other waters.  This society early in 1880, tried their hands at artificial salmon-hatching, one of the tanks of the aquarium at Aston Lower Grounds being placed at their disposal.  They were successful in bringing some thousand or more of their interesting protegees from the ova into fish shape, but we cannot find the market prices for salmon or trout at all reduced.

Fishmongers’ Hall.—­Not being satisfied with the accommodation provided for them in the Fish Market, the Fish and Game Dealers’ Association, at their first annual meeting (Feb. 13, 1878), proposed to erect a Fishmongers’ Hall, but they did not carry out their intention.

Flogging.—­In “the good old days,” when George the Third was King, it was not very uncommon for malefactors to be flogged through the streets, tied to the tail end of a cart.  In 1786 several persons, who had been sentenced at the Assizes, were brought back here and so whipped through the town; and in one instance, where a young man had been caught filching from the Mint, the culprit was taken to Soho works, and in the factory yard, there stripped and flogged by “Black Jack” of the Dungeon, as a warning to his fellow-workmen.  This style of punishment would hardly do now, but if some few of the present race of “roughs” could be treated to a dose of “the cat” now and then, it might add considerably to the peace and comfort of the borough.  Flogging by proxy was not unknown in some of the old scholastic establishments, but whipping a scarecrow seems to have been the amusement on February 26th. 1842, when Sir Robert Peel, at that day a sad delinquent politically, was publicly flogged in elligy.