It was an old custom in New England to begin dinner with pudding instead of soup. Many persons of the last generation may remember, as the writer distinctly does, seeing old people who still adhered to this practice as late certainly as from 1850 to 1860. The writer was once at a dinner where all the family began with soup except the father, a gentleman of the old school, who had a piece cut from a fresh-baked plum-pudding. He remarked to the company that such had always been his practice; and so he excused himself for keeping to his own fashion of dining. The custom of eating pudding before meat is still very common in Yorkshire, England. The following extract from a Boston paper of 1819 shows that John Adams, in 1817, kept up the old style of dinner, which, as might perhaps be imagined, was not confined to the common people, so called. In "old times" it was customary to say to children, "Those who eat the most pudding shall have the most meat." _Extract from the "Narrative of a Journey of 5000 miles through the Eastern and Western States of America," in 1817.--By Henry B. Fearon, an Englishman._ PRESIDENT ADAMS. The ex-president is a handsome old gentleman of eighty-four; his lady is seventy-six: she has the reputation of superior talents, and great literary acquirements. I was not perfectly a stranger here, as a few days previous to this I had received the honor of an hospitable reception at their mansion. Upon the present occasion the minister (the day being Sunday) was of the dinner party. As a table of a "_late king_" may amuse some of you, take the following particulars:--first course, a pudding made of Indian corn, molasses and butter;--second, veal, bacon, neck of mutton, potatoes, cabbages, carrots, and Indian beans; Madeira wine, of which each drank two glasses. We sat down to dinner at one o'clock; at two, nearly all went a second time to church. For tea, we had pound cake, sweet bread and butter, and bread made of Indian corn and rye, similar to our brown home-made. Tea was brought from the kitchen, and handed round by a neat white servant girl. The establishment of this political patriarch consists of a house two stories high, containing, I believe, eight rooms; of two men and three maid servants; three horses and a plain carriage. How great is the contrast between this individual, a man of knowledge and information--without pomp, parade, vitious and expensive establishments, as compared with the costly trappings, the depraved characters, and the profligate expenditure of ---- House, and ----! What a lesson _in this_ does America teach! There are now in this land no less than three Cincinnati! * * * * * Hogs in New York streets.