PORK AND BEANS

After January 12, Saturday is to be a porkless day throughout the Bay State, so says the Massachusets Committee of Safety. This law has, however, a loophole, for the Committee has decided to exempt from this ruling the minute bit of pork which accompanies the Boston bean to the dinner table of every true Bostonian. It was, indeed, a good thing that this rider was attached, for the bean is sacred in our midst, and what the salt is to the egg or the yeast to the bread, the pork is to the bean. Whether the tinge of pork in reality adds to the luscious flavor of the bean, or whether the meat is merely a psychological asset, is an open question, and one that has baffled many scientists.

At any rate the long and short of the matter is that baked beans must be preserved even if the pork law has to be changed for their benefit. For just as Milwaukee is noted for its beer, and Detroit for its Ford, so, too, Boston is known on account of the bean. Any blow at its prestige is a slap at Boston. Indeed, Daniel was cast into the lions' den for not bowing before Darius' idol; if the commissioners had erred they might have suffered similarly and as a penalty for snubbing the sacred bean they would doubtless have been cast into the Cambridge Subway, there to meet their fate.