e boys get up very early for once at any
rate, and that is something; for boys always like a bonfire.

147. The _inwards_ are next taken out, and if the wife be not a slattern,
here, in the mere offal, in the mere garbage, there is food, and delicate
food too, for a large family for a week; and hog's puddings for the
children, and some for neighbours' children, who come to play with them;
for these things are by no means to be overlooked, seeing that they tend
to the keeping alive of that affection in children for their parents,
which, later in life, will be found absolutely necessary to give effect to
wholesome precept, especially when opposed to the boisterous passions of
youth.

148. The butcher, the next day, cuts the hog up; and then the house is
_filled with meat_! Souse, griskins, blade-bones, thigh-bones, spare-ribs,
chines, belly-pieces, cheeks, all coming into use one after the other, and
the last of the latter not before the end of about four or five weeks. But
about this time, it is more than possible that the Methodist parson will
pay you a visit. It is remarked in America, that these gentry are
attracted by the squeaking of the pigs, as the fox is by the cackling of
the hen. This may be called slander; but I will tell you what I did know
to happen. A good honest careful fellow had a spare-rib, on which he
intended to sup with his family after a long and hard day's work at
coppice-cutting. Home he came at dark with his two little boys, each with
a nitch of wood that they had carried four miles, cheered with the thought
of the repast that awaited them. In he went, found his wife, the Methodist
parson, and a whole troop of the sisterhood, engaged in prayer, and on the
table lay scattered the clean-polished bones of the spare-rib! Can any
reasonable creature believe, that, to save the soul, God requires us to
give up the food necessary to sustain the body? Did Saint Paul preach
this? He, who, while he spread the gospel abroad, _worked himself_, in
order to have it to give to those who were unable to work? Upon what,
then, do these modern saints; these evangelical gentlemen, found their
claim to live on the labour of others.

149. All the other parts taken away, the two sides that remain, and that
are called _flitches_, are to be cured for _bacon_. They are first rubbed
with salt on their insides, or flesh sides, then placed, one on the other,
the flesh sides uppermost, in a salting trough which has a gutter r