The next thing they saw was the somewhat similar treatment of the poor pigs; but these are animals, of which for size there is nothing similar to be seen in England, excepting, perhaps, at the cattle show. At least, one which papa saw hanging up weighed 400 lbs., and looked like a young elephant. In the yard below there was a vast herd of these, 1500 having arrived by railway the night before; the number killed and cut up daily averages about 500. It takes a very few minutes only from the time the pig leaves the pen to its being hung up, preparatory to its being cut up and salted. They first get a knock on the head like the more noble beasts already mentioned; they are then stuck, in order to be thoroughly bled; after this they are plunged headlong into a long trough of boiling water, in which they lie side by side in a quiescent state, very different to the one they were in a few minutes before, when they were quarrelling in a most unmannerly manner in the yard below. From this trough the one first put in is, by a most ingenious machine, taken up from underneath, and tossed over into an empty trough, where in less than a minute he is entirely denuded of his bristles, and passed over to be cleft and hung up. The trough holds about eight or ten thus lying side by side, and the moment one is taken out at one end, another is put in at the other, and they thus all float through the length of the trough, and are taken out in order; but so rapid is the process, that no one pig is long in; in fact, the whole business occupies only a very few minutes per pig. Every part is turned to account, the mass of bristles being converted into tooth brushes, &c. In the huge larder, in the story next above the oxen, there were about 1500 unhappy pigs hung up to cool, before being cut up, salted, packed, and sent off. There are several establishments of this nature in Chicago, but only one of equal extent to the one papa saw. About 400,000 pigs are shipped every year from Chicago. I do not know the total number of cattle, but this house alone slaughters and sends away 10,000. There were places on an enormous scale for preparing tallow and lard, and there were many other details equally surprising, which I have not now time to describe; but papa says that the smells were most offensive, and that it was altogether a very horrible sight, and it was one I was well pleased to escape. Among the other wonders of Chicago, I must do honour to its hotel, which I should say was as good as any we have yet seen in America. These American hotels are certainly marvellous "institutions," though we were getting beyond the limits of the good ones when we reached Jefferson City. That, however, at St. Louis is a very fair sample of a good one.