The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1911-07-20
PIE.
A Slander by George Augustus Sala.

A SANDER by George Augustus Sala.
George Augustus Sala, English novelist
was born in London in 1925 and died in Brigh-
ton, England, December 8, 1895 He was a
correspondent of the London Telegraph" in
the United States during the Civil War in
France from 1870 to 1871, i'll Russia in 1875
and in Australia in 1885. He founded the
publication Temple Bar" and was its first
editor
The real social curse of the Atlantic
States is pie. In the west it is pro-
nounced ''poy,'' and the backwoodsmen
are fond of it; but a man who lives in a
the prairies all day long, can eat pie with
impunity. 1t is in the north and in the
east, in cities and townships, and manu-
lions congregate, and where the occu-
pations of men, women, and children are
sedentary, that an unholy appetite for
fiend reigns supreme; there he sits
heavy on the diaphragms and on the
souls of its votaries. The sallow faces,
the shrunken forms, the sunken eyes,
the morose looks, the tetchy tempera
ment of the northerners are attributable
not half so much to iced water, candies,
tough beefsteaks, tight-lacing, and to-
bacco chewing, as to unbridled indul
gence in pie.
New England can count the greatest
number of votaries to this most deleter-
ious fetish; but pie worship is prevalent
all over the north. In the State of
Massachusetts, for instance. you have
pork and beans every Sunday, but you
have pie morning, noon and night, every
day, and all the year round. dare say
you have often observed what gross
feeders the professed teetotailers are,
and how unwholesome they look for all
their abstinence from fermented liquors.
Set this down in England to a ghoul-like
craving for heavy meat, teas, greasy
mullins, Sally Lunns, and hot suppers,
and in the United States to an over
weening addictedness to pie.
| have heard of young ladies' who took
pie to bed with them. | told you many
months ago how angry the Americans
were with Mr.. Anthony Trollope for say
ing that the little children in the States
are fed on pickles. He erred, but in de-
gree. There will sometimes intervene a
short period when there are no fresh
berries to be had, and when the preserv-
ed ones have ''gin out" Then the jul
veniles are raised on pickles. At other
times their pabulum is pie. The ''Con-
LESSONS of pie-eater' have just been
published. They are heart-rending.
Through an unconquerable hunger for
pie, the wretched man who is their sub
ject often incurred in infancy the penal
visitation of hickory, and brought the
hairs of an aged grandmother with sor-
row to the grave. He wasted in gor-
mandizing pie those precious hours which
should have been devoted to study, and
in the end not only failed to graduate at
West Point, but even to marry niece
of the late Daniel Webster. Pie dark
ened his mind, stupefed his faculties,
paralyzed his energy. Pie forced him
to abandon lucrative and honorable ca
reer for an unsuccessful whaling voyage
from Cape Cod. Pie drove him into
exile. Deadened to all the fine moral
feelings by this ungovernable lust for
pie, he obtained under false and fraudu-
lent pretences, a through ticket for Cali
fornia by the Vanderbilt line; but, de-
tected in 'smouching "a tom-cod' from
the altar of the Chinese temple in San
Francisco, he was dfsgracefully expelled
from the Golden State. 1t was for pur-
Joining plea digger's noontide lunch
that he was subsequently ridden on a
rail out of the territory Of Arizona.
Beggared, broken in health, he deserted
his wife and family, drew checks upon
wildcat banks, and voted the Bell and
Everett ticket-all in consequence of pie.