Quite apart from questions of sport, however, the pig is certainly not the sweetest of quadrupeds, and to have him with you continually in the house, like William had Dora, must be something of a trial, rent or no rent. It is notable, as indicating the difference between the treatment meted out to the English and to the Irish, that when a certain woman of Epping, or some such neighborhood, took to the keeping of pigs on the Irish principle, she was swooped down upon by the authorities who have charge of the public sanitation, and compelled to part with her pet. In Ireland you can maintain familiarly in your kitchen as many pigs as you like, and nobody will interfere with you. Possibly the relationship between the Irishman and his pig might be considered reasonable if one were by any means certain that when the pig has discharged his duties as a household pet and come squalling to the knife, he were really meat for the Irishman and his family. I am afraid, however, that in too many instances the people are so frightfully poor that the bulk and best parts of the family pig’s carcass pass out of Ireland on to the breakfast tables of the bloated English, under the name and guise of Irish provisions. On the whole, one inclines to the view that even as, in the long run, the Irish would be the happier and the better fed without the potato, they might with advantage dispense also with the pig. It sounds like rank heresy, but I commend this suggestion to all thoughtful legislators. The pig requires neither care nor attention in the matter of his bringing up; he is a feeder on refuse and garbage; he would just as soon sleep on your domestic hearth as in the snuggest sty that was ever built, and, generally speaking, he may be considered a very proper beast for association with an indolent man. With the potatoes shooting up merrily forninst your cabin door, and the pig fattening himself gruntingly and without assistance from yourself, you may well recline in honeyed ease and never really trouble to do a day’s work. And it follows that in the course of time you fall irrevocably into the potato-and-pig habit, and acquiesce in the potato-and-pig standard of living, comfort, and culture. You vegetate like the tuber, and you grunt and snore and thrive on nothing, like the porker. It suits the landlords and the legislators and the philosophers, and it fits in entirely with that taint of indolence which always lurks in the Irish blood. The farming of one pig, not to mention the keeping of pigs in cabins, should be prohibited by Act of Parliament. There would naturally be great howls from the Irish people, for nobody is loved with a greater love, or treated with a greater amount of respect in Ireland, than the single pig. But he is a blight and a mistake, and a failure both economically and socially. The Irish of America, it is true, have made large fortunes out of him. There are cities in America that have been built entirely on pig, and the