With flour, sugar, brandy, &c., we do not propose to interfere; for although the quantities of these articles thus consumed are immense, they bear but a small proportion to the whole importations. Eggs, however, are in a different category. Eggs are essential to the whole pudding race; and without having our minds opened, as they now are, to the full greatness of the plum-pudding, it would be difficult for us to discover the rationale of the vast trade we carry on in eggs. In our youthful days, when, as yet, plum-puddingism was with us in its early, empirical state, we used to consider “egg-merchant” a term of ridicule, resembling the term “timber-merchant,” as applied to a vender of matches. But we now look with respect upon an egg-merchant, as an individual who manages an important part of the trade of this country with France and Belgium; not to mention its internal traffic in the same commodity. It strikes us, however, that on this subject the Frenchman and Belgian are wiser in their generation than ourselves. We could produce our own eggs easily enough if we would take the trouble; but rather than do this we hire them to do it for us, at an expense of several scores of thousands sterling in the year. They, of course, are very much obliged to us, though a little amused no doubt at the eccentricity of John Bull; and with the utmost alacrity supply us annually with about 90,000,000 eggs. John eats his foreign pudding, however—he is partial to foreign things—with great gravity, and only unbends into a smile when he sees his few chickens hopping about the farm-yard, the amusement of his children, or the little perquisite, perhaps, of his wife. He occasionally eats a newly-laid egg, the date of its birth being carefully registered upon the shell; thinks it a very clever thing in him to provide his own luxuries; and is decidedly of opinion that an English egg is worth two of the mounseers’. His neglect of this branch of rural economy, however, does not prevent his wondering sometimes how these fellows contrive to make the two ends of the year meet, when he himself finds it so difficult a matter to get plums to his pudding.