THE RENT-DAY
I suppose you know that houses do not always belong to the persons who reside in them, nor lands to the farmers who cultivate them. No. The owners or proprietors of houses and lands are called landlords, and the persons who occupy these are called the tenants. These pay to their landlords so much in a year for the use of these houses and lands, and money so paid is called rent. But suppose any one shall refuse or neglect to pay his rent, what then? why, the landlord can sell the tenant’s goods to pay himself. Certainly the landlord ought to have his money, for that is his just due, and it is his income on which he lives.
The greater number of farms and large estates in England belong to noblemen and gentlemen, who have many tenants, and who appoint certain days, generally at midsummer and Christmas, for the payment of their rents. You see in the print a farmer laying down his money, and another old gentleman in the chair waiting to do the same.
Farmers in our country generally own the house they live in, and the land they cultivate but in some cases it is rented, as in England.
ANGLING
Angling, you know, is fishing with a hook and line. Is not this a very pretty print? The willows and rushes by the water course, and the water itself so clear and dark. The gentleman seems very patient, expecting a nibble, if not a bite, before dinner. There is another man sitting on the bank behind. I suppose that rod and line laid in the grass belong to him.
Fish could not be caught in this way if means were not taken to attract and delude them. Worms and pieces of meat are therefore let down to them in the water on the hook, at which the poor fish eagerly snatch if they are hungry, and so are caught. Some fish feed on the summer flies that glide and frisk along the surface of the river; and so mock flies are made, placed on hooks and jerked about till the fish snatch at them also. The chief fresh-water fish are trout, pike, eels, carp, tench, perch, and roach. Salmon and shad come up the rivers from the sea at certain seasons.