MY FRIEND THE PIG 297 
once more able to enjoy their salmon or turbot, 
veal and lamb cutlets, fat capons, turkeys and 
geese, sirloins of beef, and, finally, roast pig. 
That’s the limit; we have outgrown cannibalism, 
and are not keen about haggis, though it is still 
eaten by the wild tribes inhabiting the northern 
portion of our island. All this should serve to 
teach vegetarians not to be in a hurry. Thoreau’s 
“handful of rice” is not sufficient for us, and not 
good enough yet. It will take long years and 
centuries of years before the wolf with blood on 
his iron jaws can be changed into the white innocent 
lamb that nourishes itself on grass. 
Let us now return to my friend the pig. He 
inhabited a stye at the far end of the back garden 
of a cottage or small farmhouse in a lonely little 
village in the Wiltshire downs where I was staying. 
Close to the stye was a gate opening into a long 
green field, shut in by high hedges, where two or 
three horses and four or five cows were usually 
grazing. These beasts, not knowing my sentiments, 
looked askance at me and moved away when I first 
began to visit them, but when they made the 
discovery that I generally had apples and Jumps 
of sugar in my coat pockets they all at once became 
excessively friendly and followed me about, and 
would put their heads in my way to be scratched, 
and licked my hands with their rough tongues to 
show that they liked me. Every time I visited the 
cows and horses I had to pause beside the pig-pen 
to open the gate into the field; and invariably the 
