SWINE. 233 



WORCESTER NORTH. 



Fro7n the Report of the Committee. 



Perhaps no animal better illustrates the " law of progress," 

 in the success which has attended the efforts of man to improve 

 and develop him, than the hog. Whatever might have been 

 the degree of perfection which he possessed as an article of food, 

 in that early period when he first became a denizen of this 

 globe, long before there was a man to test liis edible qualities, 

 in our estimate of what education and training have done for 

 him, we must tafe him as lie existed, a wild barbarian in the 

 forests of the old world ; a creature of great size and prodigious 

 strength; of long limbs and great fleetness; competing with 

 the horse in speed, and defending himself successfully, even 

 against the attaclis of the lion. But his flesh we must presume 

 to be of a very inferior quality, although the head of the wild 

 boar was esteemed a famous dish at the tables of the barons. 

 From this condition man has reclaimed him, and, by good feed- 

 ing, gentle training, and a judicious system of breeding, has 

 succeeded in bringing him up to the high standard of perfection 

 to which he lias attained in our day. 



But, notwithstanding the hog is a creature of such excellent 

 physical attainments, and has also in our day established for 

 himself, by numerous examples, a character for intelligence and 

 aptitude in learning, inasmuch as he has succeeded in master- 

 ing his alphabet, in playing cards, and outrivalling even the dog 

 ill searcliing for game, and in performing the other evolutions, 

 as to back and stand, equal to the most accomplished pointer, 

 besides^many other sagacious feats. And, although the revela- 

 tions of history and science introduce him to us as a descendant 

 of most ancient ancestry, living contemporaneously with the 

 extinct Mastodons and Elephants, and belonging by classifica- 

 tion to the intelligent group of animals called the Pachyder- 

 mata, he has, nevertheless, from time immemorial, been the 

 object of a most unjust and inveterate prejudice. The Egyp- 

 tians and the Jews fulminated against him their legal thunder, 

 branded him as unclean, and pronounced his flesh unfit to be 

 eaten. The Mohammedans, following in the wake of the same 



30* 



