54 



long snouts, with coarse bristles on the spine and large flapping 

 ears. 



These imported Hogs, ungainly as they would now appear, 

 were the most profitable and useful of all the animals bred by 

 the Puritan pioneers. They arrived earlier at maturity, re- 

 quired less care, sought out much of their own food, and were 

 not subject to accidents or diseases. They were also so pro- 

 lific that they became troublesome, and in 1663 the potent 

 magistrates of the colony of Massachusetts Bay declared it 

 " lawful for any man to kill any swine that comes into his 

 corne." This was not acceptable to the yeomen, then largely 

 in the majority, and a convention of two delegates from each 

 town, (the first convention which ever met on the American 

 continent,) assembled, and called for a sight of the royal col- 

 onial charter. Examining it, they " resolved " that the right 

 to make laws rested not with the magistrates, but with the 

 FREEMEN, neither did they cease their exertions until they had 

 established the law-making and money-raising .power of the 

 "General Court" in 1634. Some offending poiker who had 

 made a raid on Governor Endicott's corn-patch, or had dam- 

 aged Mr. Winthrop's garden with his insinuating snout, thus 

 became the parent of that august body which has so ungrate- 

 fully adopted the cod-fish as its emblem ! 



The obnoxious Hog-edict of 1633 was repealed at the first 

 session of the General Court in 1634, where it was also "agreed 

 that every towne shall have liberty to make such orders aboute 

 swine as they shall iudge best for themselues, and that if the 

 swine of one towne shall come within the ly mitts of another, 

 the owners thereof shallbe lyeable to the orders of that towne 

 where their swine soe trespasseth." The next year, (1635) 

 the empounding of stray hogs was legalized, the General Court 

 adopting an order drawn up by Mr. Treasurer, Mr. Dummer, 

 Mr. Neweberry, Mr. Beecher and Robert Moulton, which read 

 thus : — 



" July 8, 1635. It is ordered, that there shalbe a pound 

 made in every plantaciou within this jurisdiccion before the 



