e to civilisation--a murderous construction, sir. Do you see that
it is at least twelve feet, perpendicular, sir? and how do you ever
expect that salmon can climb over that barrier? I suppose a specimen of
the true "salmo salar" has never been caught in these waters since you
blocked up the passage with your villainous dam, sir?'

'I warn't ever a-thinkin' o' the salmon at all, I guess,' answered
the millowner truly and humbly, because he conceived himself in the
authoritative presence of some bigwig, senator, or M.P., capable of
calling him, Zack Bunting, to a disagreeable account, perchance.

'But you should have thought,' rejoined the stranger irately. 'Through
such wrong-headedness as yours Canada is losing yearly one of her richest
possessions in the way of food. What has exterminated the salmon in
nearly all rivers west of Quebec? dams like this, which a fish could
no more ascend than he could walk on dry land. But I hope to see
parliamentary enactments which shall render this a felony, sir,--a
felony, if I can. It is robbery and murder both together, sir.'

Mr. Hiram Holt walked rapidly to his sleigh, wrapped himself again in
the copious furs, and left the storekeeper staring after the swift
gliding cutter, and wondering more than ever who he was.

This matter of the dams had so much occupied his attention of late, that
even after he reached Cedar Creek he reverted to it once and anon; for
this fine old Canadian had iron opinions welded into his iron character.
The capacity of entertaining a conviction, yet being lukewarm about it,
was not possible to Hiram Holt. He believed, and practised suitably,
with thorough intensity, in everything; even in such a remote subject as
the Canadian fisheries.

The squire, who knew what preservation of salmon meant in the rivers of
Britain, and who in his time had been a skilful angler, could sympathize
with him about the reckless system of extinction going on through the
Province, and which, if it be not arrested by the hand of legislative
interference, will probably empty the Canadian streams of this most
delicious and nutritive of fish.

'A gold-field discovered in Labrador would not be more remunerative than
that single item of salmon, if properly worked,' remarked Hiram. 'When
the fisheries of the tiny Tweed rent for fifteen thousand a-year, a
hundred times that sum would not cover the value of the tributaries of
the St. Lawrence. And yet they're systematically killed