Pig-sticking

“ And the dirt! And the pigs themselves! They were positively uncanny. There was something almost human about them. They were all heads and no bodies. It was just as though the other half of the wits of the half-witted boy who looked after them had distributed itself among the whole herd. I could have wept when I thought how my purse and my swill-tub had been emptied to keep such puny monstrosities in the land of the living.
I had my pig taken out and weighed. He turned the scale at forty-eight pounds.
A week later I went and weighed him again; he had shrunk to forty.
I am a man of action. ”

“ By beating the dry hide with a stick it was made sufficiently pliable to bear making it into moccasins; of which I made for myself three pair, wearing one, and carrying the others on my back.
One day as I lay in a pine thicket, several pigs which appeared to be wild, having no marks on their ears, came near me, and one of them approached so close without seeing me, that I knocked it down with a stone, and succeeded in killing it. This pig was very fat, and would have weighed thirty if not forty pounds. ”

“ They are the city scavengers, these pigs, ugly brutes they are; having for the most part scanty brown backs, like the lids of old horse-hair trunks, spotted with unwholesome black blotches; they have long, gaunt legs too, and such peaked snouts that if one of them could be persuaded, to sit for his profile, nobody would recognize it for a pig's likeness; they are never attended upon, or fed, or driven, or caught, but are thrown upon their own resources in early life, and become preternaturally knowing in consequence; every pig knows where he lives much better than any body could tell him. ”

“ The words came from Jean Jacques’ lips with a snarl. “I am going to kill you. It will do you no good to whine—cochon!”
To call a man a pig is the worst insult which could be offered by one man to another in the parish of St. Saviour’s. To be called a pig as you are going to die, is an offensive business indeed.
“I know you are going to kill me—that you can kill me, and I can do nothing,” was the master-carpenter’s reply. “There it is—a turn of the lever, and I am done. Bien sur, I know how easy! I do not want to die, but I will not squeal even if I am a pig. One can only die once. ”

“ We breed and fatten a large number of pigs on the clearings round the shanty. These we butcher in batches of six or eight, as required, and turn into salt pork, bacon, and ham. We have occasionally sent a cask or two of pork, some flitches or hams, to market; but as a rule we consume our pigs on the farm. Pig-meat is most reliable as a staple. One does not tire of it so utterly as one does of either mutton or beef, if one of these be the invariable daily food.
Beef we rarely see in our shanty. The steers we breed are too valuable to be used by ourselves; they have to go to market. ”

“ The bull, cow, donkey, and goat have all shared in the labours of the year, and assisted to keep us; so that to slaughter one of those would hardly be grateful. But the pig! What think you of the pig? He has been nothing but a lazy spectator—a fellow living on those labours; nay, an abuser of the care we take to keep him; for he scorns to stir from his muddy bed, expects his food to be laid at his feet, and even has the arrogance to cry out against us if we are not in a hurry. Nothing of life knows he but its luxuries ”

“ So, just when he had knocked in the bung, and was putting the tap into the cask, he heard overhead the pig come into the kitchen. Then off he ran up the cellar steps, with the tap in his hand, as fast as he could, to look after the pig, lest it should upset the churn; but when he got up, and saw the pig had already knocked the churn over, and stood there, routing and grunting amongst the cream which was running all over the floor, he got so wild with rage that he quite forgot the ale-barrel, and ran at the pig as hard as he could. ”

“ This essential point is greatly neglected, from the too common idea that the pig is naturally a filthy brute, than which nothing can be more untrue; it is the keeper who is filthy, and not the animal, if he constrain a pig to wallow in a disgusting sty. ”

“ Women are washing in open spaces, and long lines of whitened clothes are extended from tree to tree, fluttering and gambolling in the breeze. A pig, in a sty even more extemporary than the shanties, is grunting and poking his snout through the clefts of his habitation. ”

“ More mature pigs came to market on their own legs, and very long, feeble legs they were, for a more unsightly beast than a Breton pig was never seen out of a toy Noah's ark. Tall, thin, high-backed, and sharp-nosed, these porcine victims tottered to their doom, with dismal wailings, and not a vestige of spirit till the trials and excitement of the clay goaded them to rebellion, when their antics furnished fun for the public. Miss Livy observed that the women could manage the pigs when men failed entirely. ”

“ I know how important pigs are just now, and we are making arrangements to raise our share of them, but that doesn't make me like them a bit better. Until this year we have contented ourselves with raising an occasional pig for our own use, but when preparing for this year's meat supply I felt expansive and bought a couple of plump little pigs. I admit that I like little pigs—both alive and roasted. Their perpetual smile, which even a session in the oven can't take off, appeals to me. But a full-grown, able-bodied pig is another matter—especially at feeding time. ”

“ Pork, fresh or cured, forms the principal food of our sailors and peasantry; and most precious is the pig to the poor man. It is often the pet of the younger branches of his family, and returns their affection with interest.
Of course, it is an idle fable that pigs can see and smell the wind; but it is perfectly true that they are always much agitated when a storm is approaching. ”

“ For most of my life up to then had been greatly infested by pigs; and though they were superior pigs, beautifully kept, housed and fed far better, shameful to relate, than the peasants of that place, on the days when the wind blew from where they were to where we were, clean them and air them as one might there did come blowing over us a great volume of unmistakeable pig. Eclipsing the lilies. Smothering the roses. Also, on still days we could hear their voices, and the calm of many a summer evening was rent asunder by their squeals. ”

“ The progress of the pig is swift—if the transition from pig to pork may be termed "progress." The carcass travels presently through boiling water, and emerges pink and clean. And as it goes along upon its trolley, it passes one man after another, each with an active knife, until, thirty minutes later, when it has undergone the government inspection, it is headless and in halves—mere meat, which looks as though it never could have been alive. ”

“ During that time the bulk of their winter’s meat was salted down, the toothsome sausage made, and all the other delicacies which old-fashioned folks knew so well how to prepare from the pig. Somebody has said that at our present day abatoirs they can put to some use every part of the animal but the pig’s squeal; pioneer housewives were almost as economical. ”

“ Every morning I hear the blast of a horn, when, proceeding from almost every door in the street, behold a pig! The pigs generally proceed of their own accord; but shortly after they have passed, there comes a little bare-headed, bare-footed, stunted child about eleven years old. This little attendant of the old pig-driver facetiously called at Langen-Schwalbach the 'Schwein-General, knows every house from which a pig ought to have proceeded: she can tell by the door being open or shut, or even by footmarks, whether the creature has joined the herd, or is still snoring in its sty. ”

“ The next thing to be done, is to insert a stout stick, pointed at the ends, into the hocks of the hind legs; fasten a strong cord to the stick, and hoist up the pig so as to enable you to stand up and finish your work with ease to yourself. With a sharp knife rip up the belly, and stretch out the flaps with two sticks to enable you to throw in some water to cleanse the pig's inside, having first removed the guts, etc.; hang up the pluck to cool, and also the chitterlings, and loose fat ”

“ Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, "Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste,"—with such like ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke. ”

“ TO ROAST WHOLE.
A pig ought not to be under four nor over six weeks old, and ought to be plump and fat. In the city, [Pg 114] the butcher will sell you a shoat already prepared, but in the country, we must prepare our own pig for roasting. As soon as the pig is killed, throw it into a tub of cold water to make it tender; as soon as it is perfectly, cold, take it by the hind leg and plunge into scalding water, and shake it about until the hair can all be removed, by the handful at a time. When the hair has all been removed, rub from the tail up to the end of the nose with a coarse cloth. ”

“ It was all a hurried scramble, and then a couple of them discovered that they were at the wrong end of the trough. Without a sound, they started to gobble the feed, while the others were still quarrelling and fighting. Right there I realised that I was not the first to observe the habit of pigs. There is a world of truth in the old saying we so often apply to men: "It is the still pig that gets the swill." ”

“ The head, too, hung near,—but without its fine wig,
And was now to be seen as the head of a pig.
Many times has the butcher thought of his good luck,
But he'll never again capture such a gay buck.
If pigs will walk upright, and strut with fine canes,
Stalking in towns, 'stead of roaming in lanes,
Misfortunes they'll meet with, no doubt, such as Jack's,
Getting shots through their ears, and kicks on their backs.
Piggy left a good sty,
And went out, like a guy ”

“ The Jews and Mohammedans will not eat it, and look upon it as an unclean animal. As there are nearly two hundred millions of these people on the earth, there are at least that many who do not eat pork. But aside from these, pork is eaten by the great mass of the people of the earth.
The pig is not an American animal. All our pigs, and they are many millions in number, came from animals brought from Europe. We [172] have here the peccary, a kind of little pig, very savage and dangerous, as it goes in herds and attacks every man or other animal it meets. ”

“ But a pig is only the Unclean animal—forbidden by the Prophet.
I was destined to make rather a queer discovery when I went over to the cattle-slaughter. All the buildings here were on a much larger scale, and there was no sound of trouble, but I could smell the salt reek of blood before I set foot in the place. The cattle did not come directly through the viaduct as the pigs had done. They debouched into a yard by the hundred, and they were big red brutes carrying much flesh. In the centre of that yard stood a red Texan steer with a headstall on his wicked head. No man controlled him. ”

“ It lies at the station in pig-skins and barrels, the pigs looking more hoggish than ever, as they lie on their backs and are tied at each leg and at the nose, stuffed full of this foolish stuff. It ferments fiercely, and the barrels are left uncorked and the pigs' noses unmuzzled to prevent explosion. ”

“ The best and most humane way of killing pigs is to strike them with a heavy hammer between or just above the eyes; the pigs drop down senseless, then the butcher inserts his knife into the chest, piercing the heart of the pig, which very quickly bleeds to death. The hair is removed in two ways, either by so-called scalding, i.e. immersing the body of the pig into water of a certain temperature, or by placing a bundle of straw round the carcass, setting fire to the fuel and burning off the hair; this last plan is not much followed, save in Somersetshire and two or three adjacent counties. ”

“ It is his owner more than himself that is to blame. If he had his own way he would be clean enough. Like all thick-skinned animals the pig loves to wallow in the mire and cover himself with mud to protect him against insects. But left to himself he will keep his sleeping place clean. Those who know how to keep pigs soon learn this and supply the animals with dry and clean places to sleep in.
A Fat Berkshire Hog. A Monarch of the Sty
Pork, or the flesh of the pig, has long been used as meat. ”

“ Nothing more of importance takes place during the morning, but late in the afternoon the people assemble in the dwelling to drink basi, while one or more mediums summon the spirits. After a time a sterile female pig is brought in and placed in the center of the room. Two men armed with long knives slice the animal open along the length of its stomach. An old man quickly slips in his hand, draws out the still palpitating heart, and hands it to a medium, who in turn strokes the stomachs of members of the family, thus protecting them from intestinal troubles. ”

“ Pigs, Profit of, to the Butcher—Sucking-pigs—Pork-butchers—Pig-killing at Rome—Pickling Pork—Bacon: Mode of Curing in Hampshire—Buckinghamshire—Witshire—Yorkshire—Westphalia—America—Brine a Poison for Pigs—Quantity of Bacon, Ham, and Salt Pork imported during the last Three Years—Importation of Swine—Pigs' Dung as Manure. There is perhaps no animal so entirely profitable to the butcher as the pig. ”