272 DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 



from house to house to sample, it must have been 

 the day of our arrival, when the town was full 

 of Irishmen dressed in their best. It was pig- fair 

 day, a holiday to the men, for it was the ladies that 

 held the ropes that had pigs' legs attached to them. 

 I could not see a man so employed. 



Many pigs, with their bodies and legs in sacks, 

 were brought from distant islands in boats rowed 

 by men who, when the noisy freights were landed, 

 thrust their hands beneath their coat tails, raised 

 their noses above the level of such business and 

 stalked loftily away, leaving their spouses to do the 

 dealing. While watching a most heroic struggle 

 between a full-sized woman and a monster pig that 

 threatened to snap the rope or pull a ham off, I 

 thought unkindly of the husband who never even 

 looked round to see the issue of the tug-of-war ; 

 indeed, who could have helped whispering as I 

 did : " You brutes, to leave your women so ? " But, 

 before the fair was over, I was quite convinced that 

 women as a rule, and not men, should take pigs 

 to market. 



I feel some interest in a display of skill in 

 business deals and have watched with admiration 

 the selling of a horse by a past master in the art, 

 and I admire the ready and truthful man who, when 

 selling a kicking cow, in answer to the query : " Is 

 she a good milker?" replied: "It's tired you'll 

 be before you've done milking her." But the Irish 

 pig-dealer has no equal, unless it be the Irishwoman 

 with whom he has to deal. 



It appeared at first that the pigs would be far 

 in excess of the demand and that buyers were 

 calmly waiting for sellers to realise this and then to 



