The reformer will find that my suggestion is an impracticable one. He may even go the length of calling it frivolous and ridiculous. But we shall see what we shall see. America will one day either have to forsake pig or come to very bitter grief. She is already in considerable straits as to the marketing of her porcine staples. She has shoved them down the necks of her own people till they can no more. She is pushing them down English throats with all the force that in her lies, and the limit is within a very little way of being reached. Do as one will, one cannot consume more than a certain amount of American pig in the course of the day’s deglutition. Europe is taking far more than is good for her even now, and yet the American demand is for bigger sales and extended markets, to prevent the stuff from rotting at home. The position is unfortunate in quite a number of senses; but it is precisely what any prescient American ought to have expected. America is overdoing it in the matter of pig, just as she is overdoing it in most other matters. When you have got the measure of people’s hunger and purchasing capacity you cannot appreciably increase them by any amount of advertising or bluff. The Americans boast that they can sell everything appertaining to a pig save and except the squeal. I don’t wish to frighten them, but it would not surprise me in the least if within the space of a few years the large accumulation of squeals which they must, by this time, have on hand were to arise up as it were, and din their ears in a manner which they will not relish. I may remark finally that in spite of everything that Chicago may say and publish in their praise, there can be no question that American pig products are of a most inferior and unappetising quality as compared with the real article. American hog meat exhibits a coarseness of grain and a crudeness of flavour which will incline any person of gustatory discrimination to the abstention of the Hebrew. Eggs and bacon constitute the English national breakfast dish; ham and eggs are the sure rock and support of our country inns and cheap restaurants. Both these dishes have, however, fallen into sad disrepute during late years, and I have no hesitation in attributing this grave and heartrending circumstance to the fact that the bacon and ham nowadays served are almost exclusively American. The gentlemen from the other side must excuse me if I appear as he would phrase it, “to tread somewhat too severely on his face”; but I really mean him no evil. Rather do I wish him all manner of good. Besides which it is one’s duty to be patriotic; and charity—even in the article of pig—should begin at home. [Illustration] CHAPTER XII VERDICT Before I leave the jury of potent, grave and reverend Britishers to their own reflections on the subject before them, it may be well to indulge in a little summing-up.