query best.  The West furnished bountiful supplies, and readily floated these products to a market, where competition was not only not thought of, but entirely out of the question.  Cattle and sheep raising (outside of Texas) had no growth or encouragement among them.  The planters soon fell into the habit of using bacon on their own tables, and the result is, it has continued to form the staple article for all classes there for several generations.  The darkies have rather flourished upon it, while the whites have suffered greatly in consequence.

Its use undeniably produces scrofula, salt-rheum, tetter, ringworm, humors in the blood, rheumed eyes, enlarged glands, sore eyes, and lastly, cancer.  Almost any community in the South will afford several examples of one or all of these diseases, and all directly traceable to the excessive use of salt pork.  In a somewhat sparsely settled neighborhood near Central Georgia, known as Social Circle, a dozen cases of cancer alone can, in one form or another, be found, and that is one of the most salubrious sections in all the southern country.

They have become so enamored of “hog and hominy,” that they are fairly superstitious or foolish regarding the use of some other kinds of meat.  For instance, mutton, in any form, they are disgusted with as a rule.  We tried to get at the reason while sojourning there, but never fairly succeeded, though the impression was, plainly, that they did not think it proper food for white people anyway, and then the “odor was so disgusting,” and altogether it was only fit for “trash folks.”  We scarce hope to be believed when we state, that we have seen young ladies refuse to sit at the table where this dish was served, and served, too, out of compliment to their guests from the North.

This same feeling was largely shared by the colored people, and, while it was no infrequent thing for the “smoke-house”—­where the bacon was kept—­to be broken open in ante-war times, taking the risk of detection and dogs, it was almost an unheard-of occurrence that a sheep was stolen.  They roamed, what few there were, at will and unharmed, except by dogs and wild beasts—­the special benefit accruing to their owners being simply the wool.  During and since the war, matters have been undergoing a change, and sheep raising is receiving more attention, and beginning to be valued as an article of food.  Still, during weeks last winter, the Atlanta markets did not show a single carcass of mutton, notwithstanding the great extent of country tributary to it by means of her railways.

This change above referred to, while of slow growth, is, in part, owing to the example our troops set, the experience of their prisoners, their straitened circumstances, and lastly, to the infusion of Northern society among them.

While there are undoubtedly tenfold more of those diseases in the South consequent on the use of pork, than what there is at the North, yet its consumption is vastly in excess with us of what it should be.  There is no doubt of this.  Scrofula, salt-rheum, and ophthalmia, are among the chief developments at the North.  At the North greater and better variety of food among all classes is in use, to say nothing of better cooking, which wards off some of the worst results.