Four Months in a Sneak-Box: A Boat Voyage of 2600 Miles Down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and Along the Gulf of MexicoBishop, Nathaniel H. (Nathaniel Holmes)
General
Four Months in a Sneak-Box: A Boat Voyage of 2600 Miles Down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and Along the Gulf of Mexico
Bishop, Nathaniel H. (Nathaniel Holmes)
Boats and boating; Mississippi River -- Description and travel; Ohio River -- Description and travel
Another parasite found in the muscles of the pig is known as the
Cysticercus cellulosus, and the animals afflicted by it are said to
have the measles. This larva of the tapeworm exists in the pig in
little sacs not larger than a pin's head, and can be seen by the naked
eye. The strong brine of the packer does not kill them, and I have
known them to be taken alive from a boiled ham. The great heat of
frying alone renders them harmless. When partially-cooked, measly pork
is eaten by man, the gastric juice of the stomach dissolves the
membranous sac which contains the living larva, and the animal soon
passes into the intestines, where, clinging by its hooks, it holds on
with wonderful tenacity, rapidly sending out joint after joint, until
the perfect tapeworm sometimes attains a length of thirty feet.
Let us hope, for the credit of humanity, that these facts are not
generally known, for man has ills enough without incurring the risks
of such a diet. If pork must form a staple, let the genealogical tree
of his pigship be carefully sought after, and let the would-be
consumer ask the question considered so important in a certain river-
bounded city of Pennsylvania, "Who was his grandfather?"
In the year 1800 Cincinnati was a little pioneer settlement of seven
hundred and fifty men, women, and children. Her census of 1880 will
not fall far short of a quarter of a million. She contributes more
than her share to feed the world, and is, strange to say, as
celebrated for the terpsichorean art as for her pork. Even Boston must
yield her the palm as a musical centre, and give to the inhabitants of
the once rough western city the credit due them for their versatility
of talent, and the ease with which they render Beethoven, or "take a
turn in pork," as occasion may demand, many of the music-loving
citizens being engaged at times in a commercial way with this staple.
Having obtained at a bookstore a copy of Lloyd's Map of the
Mississippi River, I returned to the tailor's, where I was greeted in
the most kindly manner, and informed that the young lady of the house,
the only daughter of my host, had voluntarily left home to visit some
city relations, that I might occupy her comfortably furnished room,
with the open fireplace, which was now filled with blazing wood, and
sending forth a genial glow into the heavily-curtained apartment. When
I protested against this promotion in the social scale, and refused to
deprive the young lady of her room, I was informed that she knew "WHO
WAS WHO," and had insisted upon leaving her room that a gentleman
might be properly entertained in it. From this time my now agreeable
host stoutly refused to accept payment in advance for my daily
rations, while, with his family and apprentices, he took up his
quarters each evening in my new room, relating his experiences during
the war, and giving me many original ideas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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