It seems only natural, therefore, that in emigrating to the States, the Irishman who could manage it would insist on taking with him one or more pigs, probably as much for company’s sake as for any other reason. And behold the result! What was a simple and very human foible on the part of the Irishman, has become, with the American, a raging and soul-consuming obsession. Pork, pork, pork, pork, pork! That is the cry that rises daily and hourly to heaven from the greater part of the United-States-half of North America. Everybody is concerned in it; everybody has money in it; everybody wants to get more money out of it. The pig is rushed through his feeds, weighed every morning till he has assumed the right specific gravity, hurried off by car to his doom, killed and slain on the no-waiting-here principle, and turned into hams, sides, lard, brawn, and sausages for the delectation of a hungry world before he has a chance to say George Washington. America as a country, and the Americans as a people, depend upon hogs for their prosperity to an extent that is appalling. Upon the dead weight of him in the warehouses, and upon his firmness, or want of it, in the markets, hangs the stability of all sorts of stocks, shares, bonds, debentures, and general securities. If pig is “up,” America is a land of contented households and smiling faces. If pig is “down,” she is plunged forthwith into the deepest woe and the meanest irritability. All of which affords one further striking evidence that the Americans are really a wonderful people, and that they deserve the generous tributes of praise that they so consistently and lavishly draw upon themselves. A nation whose principal diet is pea-nuts, and whose principal profit is derived from the sale of pigs, is obviously pretty low down in the scale of civilisation. A hog tender cannot by any chance be the finest kind of man, neither can a pork butcher or a wholesale ham merchant. And every American who is not a member of a trust, or a pastor of a church, or a boss billposter, or a missionary, or a comic singer, is either a hog tender, a pork butcher, or a wholesale ham merchant. At any rate, so one gathers from the authorised reports.