panionship, has been suspended and annulled.

Melton Mowbray has also a very respectable individuality. It is a
great centre for the scarlet-coated Nimrods who scale hedges and
ditches, in well-mounted squadrons, after a fox _preserved_ at great
expense and care to become the victim of their valor. But this is a
small and frivolous distinction compared with its celebrated
manufacture of _pork-pies_. It bids fair to become as famous for
them as Banbury is for buns. I visited the principal establishment
for providing the travelling and picnicking world with these very
substantial and palatable portables. I went under the impulse of
that uneasy, suspicious curiosity to peer into the forbidden
mysteries of the kitchen which generally brings no satisfaction when
gratified, and which often admonishes a man not only to eat what is
set before him without any questions for conscience sake, but also
for the sake of the more delicate and exacting sensibilities of the
stomach. I must confess my first visit to this, the greatest pork-
pie factory in the world, savored a little of the anxiety to know
the worst, instead of the best, in regard to the solid materials and
lighter ingredients which entered into the composition of these
suspiciously cheap luxuries. There were points also connected with
the process of their elaboration which had given me an undefinable
uneasiness in the refreshment rooms of a hundred railway stations.
I was determined to settle these moot points once for all. So I
entered the establishment with an eye of as keen a speculation as an
exciseman's searching a building for illicit distillery, and I came
out of it a more charitable and contented man. All was above board,
fair and clean. The meat was fresh and good. The flour was fine
and sweet; the butter and lard would grace the neatest housewife's
larder; the forms on which the pies were moulded were as pure as
spotless marble. The men and boys looked healthy and bright; their
hands were smooth and clean, and their aprons white as snow. Not
one of them smoked or took snuff at his work. I saw every process
and implement employed in the construction of these pies for the
market; the great tubs of pepper and spice, the huge ovens, the
cooling racks, the packing room; in a word, every department and
feature of the establishment. And the best thing that I can say of
it is this: that I shall eat with better satisfaction and relish
hereafter the pies