206 THE HOG. 



CHAPTER XIY. 



Tips, Profit of, to the Butcher Suckinpr-pigs Pork-butchers Pig-killincr at RomePickling 

 Pork Bacon : Mode of Curing in Hampshire Buckinghamshire Witshlre Yorkshire- 

 Westphalia America Brine a Poison for PigsQuantity of Bacon, Harn, and Salt Pork 

 imported during the last Three Years Importation of Swine Pigs'Dung as Manure. 



THERE is perhaps no animal so entirely profitable to the butcher 

 as the pig. Scarcely an atom of it but is useful. The offal is so 

 small as not to be thought of in comparison with that arising from 

 cattle and sheep. The feet, the head, and even portions of the intes- 

 tines are saleable for food and eagerly purchased by epicures ; the 

 scraps and trimmings of the meat make delicious sausages, pork pies, 

 and other such savory dishes ; brawn, too, is another of the delicacies 

 we owe to the much despised pig ; the fat, or lard, is invaluable to 

 cooks, confectioners, perfumers, and apothecaries; pigs' bladders 

 meet a ready sale ; the skin is available for pocket-books and several 

 purposes ; and the bristles form by no means an inconsiderable item 

 in the tables of imports and exports, and are used by shoemakers, 

 as well as in the manufacture of brushes, &c. Lastly, the flesh in 

 the form of fresh or pickled pork, ham, and bacon, constitutes the 

 ",hief food of thousands of human beings in all parts of the globe. 



In France, from one-half to two-thirds of the meat consumed by 

 the poorer and middling classes of the provinces is pork. In Ireland, 

 the peasantry and many of the middle-men scarcely know the taste 

 of any other kind of meat. In most of our Channel Islands pork 

 constitutes the staple animal food of the laboring classes and small 

 farmers; and in America, and especially among the new settlements 

 and back-woods, it is often the only animal food for the first few 

 years of the settler's life. 



SUCKING-PIGS. 



In our own country, " sucking-pigs" too are in great esteem, and 

 will, at their season, fetch a very high price. Charles Lamb, in one 

 of his inimitable " Essays of Elia," declares, " Of all the delicacies 

 of the whole mundus edibilis, I will maintain this to be the most 

 delicate. 



" I speak not of your grown porkers things between pig and 

 pork these hobbydehoys ; but a young and tender suckling, under 

 a moon old, guiltless as ye': of the sty; with no original speck of 

 the amor immunditice, the hereditary failing of the first parent, as 

 yet manifest ; his voice as yet not broken, but something between 

 a childish treble and a grumble, the mild forerunner or prceludium 

 of a grunt. 



