294 Saddle and Sirlo 



in. 



to rake it out of a mill-dam. They are rather shy ; 

 and at their feasts lads dance with lads, and lasses 

 with lasses during the early part of the evening. 

 Later on, however, Mr. Spurgeon, who so much 

 approves of the other arrangement, would decline to 

 be M.C. The Haworth and Wath Valley one-tram 

 line puzzled them sorely. At last one of their phi- 

 losophers gave the company his mind pretty sharply 

 upon the point : " Did they think he was syke a fule 

 as pay to gan and hev to walk back — you've nobbut 

 line one way." 



Mr. Tuley, a Keighley weaver, first inoculated the 

 locality with high art pig-feeding. He showed at 

 The Royal, and called his cottage " Matchless House," 

 after his pet prize sow of the large breed. No small 

 portion of the eighteen shillings a week, which he and 

 his wife earned at the loom, were spent in oatmeal 

 for his pigs ; and Mrs. Tuley once " shaved a pig for 

 our maister," when the judges preferred them without 

 hair. He was a great man for pig pedigrees, and 

 he could generally get 5/. for the large sort at two 

 months. 



The enthusiasm for pig-showing also rages at 

 Leeds, but does not take quite such a legitimate 

 form. The Leeds system is in fact rather pig-buying 

 than pig-breeding. Some of the owners keep public- 

 houses, where people meet, not to troll (as we have 

 known rustics to do for nearly an hour over their ale) 

 that dreary Wiltshire ditty : — 



" Heigho ! my dinner, oh ! 

 Bacon and potatoes, oh !" 



but to hear at the bar the result of the summer " pig 

 races" by telegram, and to make sows and boars the 

 theme of their discourse. Professor Simonds and his 

 tooth-screw are names of dread, and when friends do 

 begin to let out confidentially over the ale, there are 

 some very awkward stones of pigs borrowed and rules 



