Arizona silver belt., 1894-07-21
JOGGING FOR T0NCOD
INTERESTING DESCRIPTION OF A coN- NEcTlcUT eoSiNEss AND PASTlME

| AmonR the Toncotts Was Discovered.
 Not to Jig Aieat shc Thames River Is to
 He Pu. psssn s.s Eccentric.
 Its good thing that virtec is its own reward, said man from Connect. icut. That Is about all tho recompense 1t ever gets, even in Connecticut Now, for instance, take tho confiding and crcdulons tomcod Like all fish, the tomcod has habits Unlike many fishes, none of tho tomced's habits is bad Yet the most tnhoceat and touching of them leads the toincod to his inevitable undo. ing over in Uonnecticut, especially along the Thames river. His very vir- tues are his ruin. He might better be a vicious, rollicking thieving dogtish, the tomcod might, ten times over than his own highly reputable and innocent self He would live many times as long as he does and have Q heap moro fun, because then folks wouldnt jig for him. A good many scores of uly compatriets take advantage of his trustfuness and jig him from his chilly but ceugeaial home by the bushel.
 Never jigged for tomoods? Then it is plain that you arc so unfortunate as never to have lived in Comocticut--any- way not in any of those parts of that in comparable state where tomcods arc jig ged Not to jig for tomcods over there, especially along the Thames river, is to be eccentric.
 The fatal habit of the tomood is to be caressing. If you never noticed this peonliaritS of the toncod, ,ual,e n poiut of doing 1t the very first chance you get A good place to detect him at it Is from the end of some bier that rises from wa ter he frelnents. You will see him come up M schools around the supporting pieces of the pier and rub himself against them, passing all around them always in gentle contact with them, turning first this side and then that side to the pile, rubbing his nose against it and fondling it in many ways, as a pet cat might rub itself against your leg But piers are not the only objects of tho tomeod's foudness. He caresses all sorts Ol JClHtbAtA NNNll NGAtNLic Nb NltN HltA face and pays his addresses to cold and unconscious fiotsam, He puts his trust in anything that offers His creduhty is boundless His confidence is sublime And the jigger plays them for all they are worth
 People in Connecticut are very ob. servant folk. especially along the Thames river. One day long ago one of my fellow citizens sat nusingly upon tho bank of thahstoried stream. He held in his hand 6 small oak bough on which leaves were clustered At last he aim lessly dropped the bough into the river It fell near the shore, and the punches of leaves sank somewhat below the sur face. Presently tomcods came swim ming up to the leaves, obtrudiug them selves into the line of my fellow citi- zen pensive vision. Scores of them sur rounded the oak leaves and swam in a fondling way among them and about them, manifesting much the same dumb delight that cat does as it rolls and wriggles on bunch of catnip
 After awhile this strange affinity between the oak leaves and the toIncods gradually gave my fellow citizen an idea Pensiveness gave way to the prac. tical. He got mp and went home aud then tied some sharp hooks to the end of long stick. Then he returned to the river. The oak branch was still lying close at hand ill the water He manip- ulated its leaves beneath the water gen tly, and as the caressing and trustful toncods responded to their undulating movements my fellow citizen yanlled them out with the hooks at the end of his stick So long as he kept the bunch of oak leaves moving in the water the tomcodH swarned about it, unmindful of tho play of the dest.rctise gaf9 among them Now and then my fellow citizen would remove the bough from the wa Ser Then the tomcods would instantly disappear The oak back again in the water, back would come the tomcods and were aware of no other presence. Soon the shore was strewn with the un- suspecting fish, and the sport becoming monotonous my fellow citizen filled his basket and went home
 'Of course this interesting discovery in piscatorial psychology, so to speak, soo1i sbsorbed attention in those parts, and e1perimenters lined the banks of the Thames river daily These expert ments at last took on the accepted name of jigging, and tomcod jigging became Q popular recreation in Connecticut and syet
 An expert with bunch of oak leaves and jig can fill wagon with tomcods in a few hours If he wants to, and if every tomcod that swims was in a school around one bunch of leaves and tho jig ger at that bunch could stay and jig long enough he could make the race of tomcod extinct, for every tomcod would come right up to that bunch of leaves and be everlastingly jigged. A great many good Connecticut people protest that they jig for tomcods not for plea sure or pecuniary profit, but because of the great moral lesson they learn from it Whether that is so or not, the fact remains that tte toothsome tomcod is the most cdfifitfing, credulous and inno- cent of fishes Nov York Suu.
 An HistorisP Pen.
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