THE PIG. 225 



doubled every year, the world would soon be 

 overpopulated. Supposing they increased ten- 

 fold and could find sustenance, it would not 

 take many generations to pack the whole sur- 

 face of the earth with hogs as closely as a 

 Chicago pork-factory-yard before a grand kill. 

 There must, therefore, be a corresponding de- 

 struction of life to make up for the annual 

 increase, or, more properly speaking, the nor- 

 mal rate of increase becomes adjusted to the 

 amount of annual waste. 



But what a state of affairs this reveals ! Out 

 of every family of from a dozen to twenty only 

 one or two were left alive by the following 

 spring. Truly, the pig paid dearly for his 

 pig - headedness in sticking to the forest and 

 the swamp ! The wolf, the bear, the lynx, 

 and the panther were the chief factors in this 

 fearful process of subtraction. You may take 

 it as a general law that when a beast is a 

 member of a large family born at the same 

 time as himself, his prospects of long life are 

 not good. A life assurance society would not 

 take him at any price — except in the annuity 

 department — nor would a company which grants 

 compensation for accidents. 



P 



