And just as nut-chewing is responsible for certain grave weaknesses in the American character, so is pig-dealing. The pig and the potato have made the Irishman the idlest man in the world. The pig takes no rearing, and the potato is such a lively and prolific tuber that it will grow almost without planting. The Irishman has reaped the full disadvantages incident to these merits in the pig and the potato. And one feels sure that the American is suffering equally from the effects of the pig. I have no wish to reopen the box of horrors which was introduced to our notice some time back by the author of “The Jungle.” That gentleman did his work thoroughly, and the atmosphere is even yet redolent in consequence. It does not concern me that Chicago meats, tinned or cured, are not always entirely fitted for human consumption, or that the Chicago method of treating such meats are uncleanly, or that the Chicago idea of industrial efficiency is a perverted one. What does concern me is that Chicago is an American city, built by Americans, run by Americans, and made lurid by Americans—on pig. To suggest to the American reformer that he should take steps for the immediate extermination of the pigs in America, steps, in fact, such as have been taken with a view to the extinction of the rabbit in Australia, would be to fill him with horror and amazement. He is all for the amelioration and improvement and cleaning up of Chicago; he does not see that it is the pig and the great American people who are the root trouble. Prohibit the breeding and rearing of pigs throughout the United States, and you will have gone much further towards the cleaning up of Chicago, and, for that matter, the cleaning up of America, than you are ever likely to get by dealing simply with Chicago itself. So long as there are pigs, so long will Chicago reek. Abolish pigs, and you have abolished the worst features of the world’s foulest city.