rotten." His order book seemed to include half Debrett; and we remember once asking him how he would make a very special pie it he had orders for it. His reply was, that he would feed the special pig on baked potatoes. "No The Mark Lane Express thus epitomises the trade. vember to April is the season, and some of the makers fill up the intervening months with veal-and-ham pies. A few of them do not content themselves during the season merely with buying legs and loins, but kill pigs for themselves, and cure the flitches. The pies are made of all sizes, from 1 lb. to 20 lbs. The smallest ones are principally consumed at railway stations, and the 2 lb. and 3 lb pies are destined for higher class customers, and go to the universities and all over the kingdom, for breakfast and luncheon. Some of the makers turn out from 400 to 500 pies a week, and calculate the rate of baking in a fast oven at one hour for a 1 lb.pie, and 24 hours for a 3 Iber." A lady whose enthusiasm for "the red, white, and roan," was such, that she and her maid brought back her first short-horn purchase, against all railway precedent, in the mail train with them, was wont to say that she repeated once, if not twice a day, Mr. Douglas of Athelstaneford's definition of what a good one should be. Pig fanciers who want great leading principles both of structure and management defined, may very safely take Stearn upon Fisher, as their Coke upon Lyttelton. The former thus defines his model pig. Its chief points are "a rather small head, with wide heavy chaps, short snout, broad deep chest, ears rather small and thin, with the ends sharp, pendulous, and pointing a little forward, roundness of rib, shortness of leg, small feet, long body, thigh well dropped close to the hock, shoulders and hams thick, neck rising well behind ears, small bones in proportion to the flesh, broad and straight, or slightly rising back, tail small and curled and placed high, and finally, hair thin, long, fine, and silky." Both authorities agree on the points that the sow should be larger than the boar, and Mr. Stearn makes ten teats the minimum. Mr. Fisher's definition of a perfect pig differs in some respects from his Suffolk compatriot. He says that the forehead should be wide, and the nose "moderately short," and lays great stress on the ears being thin, erect, and pointed forward. He gives as his reason that when ears hang down over the eyes, pigs cannot readily see the objects which approach, and that therefore they are more liable to accidents. The under jaw should show an inclination to roundess, which indicates thriftiness. The length of body should not be great, or they will be clumsy, and overlay their pigs; the flank should be low, and only slightly arched, and "the belly deep and thick that the flitches may be thick in the thin parts." The legs should not sink much at the fetlocks, so as to throw the weight on the heel and pasterns; and plenty of long, bright, and vigorous hair is the most truthful index of a large amount of lean meat in proportion to the fat in the carcass. It also prevents many of those scratches which are always thrown into the scale against the seller. As regards the time for pigging, Mr. Stearn considers that a sow may be used as a breeder at ten months, and breed in January or February, when the litter can have eight or nine weeks warm with her; and again in August. Mr. Fisher, it would seem, does not care to see any arrival before March, and again in September ; and also holds that, save in exceptional cases, such as very cold weather, a sow is better left to herself and old nurse Nature when she farrows. Mr. Stearn, on the contrary, hands each of the new arrivals into a hamper as they are born, and nips off their side teeth with a pair of pincers. He does so, because he has found that if they once bite the sow and draw blood, she will very often eat them. It is a curious fact that Mr. Fisher has never seen sows eat their young, and considers it "an unnatural and revolting charge," and, perhaps, confounded with her eating those which were born dead and left within her reach. On the different points of feeding it is not our intention to enter. It is allowed that breeding sows should have their liberty and grass, with small coal at hand. The Carhead ones used to sleep in a large open shed; and oat dust and rice mixed in a tub and steeped in cold water formed a great portion of their food, at the cost of 2d. a head per day. Mr. Stearn is a great advocate of washing and brushing over to keep pigs in health, and he has invented a feeding-trough, whose great merit is, that it not only prevents all waste and spoiling of food, but allows a pig with the heaviest chap to feed with as much ease and comfort as one that can dip into a quart pot. And there we leave our pig, deep in the pursuit which it loves best, since it had only the primeval crab-apple and the acorn to crunch. H. H. D. VOL. I., N. S. 1868. BB rotten." His order book seemed to include half Debrett; and we remember once asking him how he would make a very special pie it he had orders for it. His reply was, that he would feed the special pig on baked potatoes. "No The Mark Lane Express thus epitomises the trade. vember to April is the season, and some of the makers fill up the intervening months with veal-and-ham pies. A few of them do not content themselves during the season merely with buying legs and loins, but kill pigs for themselves, and cure the flitches. The pies are made of all sizes, from 1 lb. to 20 lbs. The smallest ones are principally consumed at railway stations, and the 2 lb. and 3 lb pies are destined for higher class customers, and go to the universities and all over the kingdom, for breakfast and luncheon. Some of the makers turn out from 400 to 500 pies a week, and calculate the rate of baking in a fast oven at one hour for a 1 lb.pie, and 2 hours for a 3 lber." A lady whose enthusiasm for "the red, white, and roan," was such, that she and her maid brought back her first short-horn purchase, against all railway precedent, in the mail train with them, was wont to say that she repeated once, if not twice a day, Mr. Douglas of Athelstaneford's definition of what a good one should be. Pig fanciers who want great leading principles both of structure and management defined, may very safely take Stearn upon Fisher, as their Coke upon Lyttelton. The former thus defines his model pig. Its chief points are "a rather small head, with wide heavy chaps, short snout, broad deep chest, ears rather small and thin, with the ends sharp, pendulous, and pointing a little forward, roundness of rib, shortness. of leg, small feet, long body, thigh well dropped close to the hock, shoulders and hams thick, neck rising well behind ears, small bones in proportion to the flesh, broad and straight, or slightly rising back, tail small and curled and placed high, and finally, hair thin, long, fine, and silky." Both authorities agree on the points that the sow should be larger than the boar, and Mr. Stearn makes ten teats the minimum. Mr. Fisher's definition of a perfect pig differs in some respects from his Suffolk compatriot. He says that the forehead should be wide, and the nose "moderately short," and lays great stress on the ears being thin, erect, and pointed forward. He gives as his reason that when ears hang down over the eyes, pigs cannot readily see the objects which approach, and that therefore they are more liable to accidents. The under jaw should show an inclination to roundess, which indicates thriftiness. The length of body should not be great, or they will be clumsy, and overlay their pigs; the flank should be low, and only slightly arched, and "the belly deep and thick that the flitches may be thick in the thin parts." The legs should not sink much at the fetlocks, so as to throw the weight on the heel and pasterns; and plenty of long, bright, and vigorous hair is the most truthful index of a large amount of lean meat in proportion to the fat in the carcass. It also prevents many of those scratches which are always thrown into the scale against the seller. As regards the time for pigging, Mr. Stearn considers that a sow may be used as a breeder at ten months, and breed in January or February, when the litter can have eight or nine weeks warm with her; and again in August. Mr. Fisher, it would seem, does not care to see any arrival before March, and again in September; and also holds that, save in exceptional cases, such as very cold weather, a sow is better left to herself and old nurse Nature when she farrows. Mr. Stearn, on the contrary, hands each of the new arrivals into a hamper as they are born, and nips off their side teeth with a pair of pincers. He does so, because he has found that if they once bite the sow and draw blood, she will very often eat them. It is a curious fact that Mr. Fisher has never seen sows eat their young, and considers it "an unnatural and revolting charge," and, perhaps, confounded with her eating those which were born dead and left within her reach. On the different points of feeding it is not our intention to enter. It is allowed that breeding sows should have their liberty and grass, with small coal at hand. The Carhead ones used to sleep in a large open shed; and oat dust and rice mixed in a tub and steeped in cold water formed a great portion of their food, at the cost of 2d. a head per day. Mr. Stearn is a great advocate of washing and brushing over to keep pigs in health, and he has invented a feeding-trough, whose great merit is, that it not only prevents all waste and spoiling of food, but allows a pig with the heaviest chap to feed with as much ease and comfort as one that can dip into a quart pot. And there we leave our pig, deep in the pursuit which it loves best, since it had only the primeval crab-apple and the acorn to crunch. H. H. D. VOL. I., N. S. 1868. B B MY LAST SESSION. No. II. T is the last fortnight in July, and we are in articulo mortis. Everybody is glad the Session is nearly over. We have been tossed about in a short chopping sea of politics, and no one is quite satisfied with the Session. It has been a harassing and fatiguing time-a Session of few "counts," and long sittings. Towards the end the "whips" have required whipping, and lords of the treasury and comptrollers of the household have scarcely been kept up to the mark in "making a House and keeping a House," even after severe ministerial "wiggings." Many fellows have "paired" and left town a fortnight ago, and others have been running down to their constituencies for two or three days every now and then to see how matters were going on. It requires some courage and nerve, in default of a contented and confiding constituency, to remain in town up to the actual day of prorogation, when a general election is certain to happen during the recess. You get urgent letters from the Chairman of your Election Committee, or your confidential lawyer, or some private friend whom you trust more than either, imploring you to come down and show yourself." Perhaps the enemy is actually in the field, and the most intense paragraphs in your local paper about the shabbiness of canvassing the electors "while our patriotic member is compelled to remain in town in the discharge of his Parliamentary duties," fail to choke him off. It often happens that your friends are frightened without occasion. Your private letters hint, for example, that your vote on the Maynooth, or the Sunday Liquor, or the Dumdrusky Railway Bill, has given offence in certain quarters, and that So-and-So is sounding some of the electors about a requisition to So-and-So, to come and oppose you. In any case you are told that your presence, if only for a few days, will have the happiest effects, and one writer adds that this is the decided opinion of "mine host" of the "County Arms," where you put up. If you are a young hand, it is exceedingly difficult to receive these missives without getting "funky." You ask your "whip" to find you a "pair" for a week, alter your mind on |