24 



" I prefer tlio grunting of a hog in a cottager's sty to tlie song of a 

 nigbtingaie, and I think sides of bacon the ver}^ best furniture of a 

 laborer's cottage." For as has been many times written, in point 

 of utilit\', as far as man is concerned, the hog claims precedence of 

 every member of the pachydermatous order, excluding the horse 

 and ass. Fresh or salted it is seen as an article of diet, alike on 

 the tables of the rich and the poor, and the raising and fattening of 

 the hog, and the preparation of it when killed for public consump- 

 tion, and for transportation, employ capital and labor in the Unit- 

 ed States of no trifling amount. 



The hog has come to be regarded as an unclean animal. He is 

 the t^^pe of uncleanness and of disgustful, distasteful vulgarit}^ 

 of gluttony, of filth, of indolence, of the lowest kind of brutality. 



We say, that man is a hog who seeks to obtain for himself, by 

 unfair means, more than his share of what belongs to him in any 

 division of property. We call him a hog, who makes his own in- 

 dividual comfort of more consequence than the comfort of his " 

 famil}'^ or of his friends. " Hoggishness " is the term used, when 

 we would describe the acts of those persons who seek to take the 

 best places at feasts, at the lecture-room, in the street cars, or the 

 steam cars. 



We call him " Pig Headed " who asserts opinions unsupported 

 by reasons and sticks to them. This is all wrong and is unjust to 

 the character of the hog. There is to us consolation in the thought 

 that there are man}^ great hogs, who are n<)t in our pens. But 

 they exhibit themselves daily, and no doubt to the enjoyment of 

 themselves, if not to their friends. 



But your Committee are of the opinion, that in this, great in- 

 justice and great wrong is done to the character of the hog. They 

 have carefull}^ studied the natural history of the animal. They 

 have done this with minds more or less perverted by their early 

 education and prejudices. They have been t£<,ught from their very 

 infancy to believe, that " a hog is a hog and will be a hog no matter 

 where you put him." But they nevertheless have come to the con- 

 clusion that the hog is just what man his master makes him. 



Plutarch remarks that Hesiod exhorted the husbandman to pray 

 for the harvest, but to do so with his hand upon the plough. So 

 he that would pray for fat hogs must do so with his hand upon the 

 open corn crib. A hog is like any other animal, or any human 

 being ; he cannot become fat on air. Provender is what will do the 

 business for either hog or man. What gives the members of this 

 societ}^ around me their rotundity of stomach? Provender, A 

 round, fat belly, with good capon must be lined, not to mention 

 the other good things. 



Your Committee are human, and therefore may err. But from a 

 life-long study of the characteristics of the nature of the hog ; from 

 a careful perusal of the writings of Cuvier and Bulfon, and even of 

 Linneaus and of Sir Cliarles Bell, not to mention what they have 



