Pigtail

“ But still it hung behind him.
Then round and round, and out and in,
All day the puzzled sage did spin;
In vain—it mattered not a pin—
The pigtail hung behind him.
And right, and left, and round about,
And up, and down, and in, and out
He turned; but still the pigtail stout
Hung steadily behind him.
And though his efforts never slack,
And though he twist, and twirl, and tack,
Alas! still faithful to his back
The pigtail hangs behind him.
William M. Thackeray.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL There's a song in the air!
There's a star in the sky!
There's a mother's deep prayer
And a baby's low cry! ”

“ If they're so bloody patriotic, I says one thing: I ain't the man to stand in their way. You done me a good turn to-night, mate; I'm doing you one. 'Ere's the bloody pigtail, 'ere's my empty mug. Fill the mug and the pigtail's yours. It's good for a quid at the dock gates any day!”
My suspicions vanished; my interest arose to boiling-point. I refilled my acquaintance's mug, pressed a sovereign upon him (in honesty I must confess that he was loath to take it) , and departed with the pigtail coiled neatly in an inner pocket of my jacket. ”

“ An infant pigtail is just like the first tender sprout of a tulip bulb, and would be lovable were not the Chinese baby so very horrible of hue and shape. He isn't as pretty as the pig that Alice nursed in Wonderland, and he lies quite still and never cries. This is because he is afraid of being boiled and eaten. I saw cold boiled babies on a plate being carried through the heart of the town. They said it was only sucking-pig, but I knew better. Dead sucking-pigs don't grin with their eyes open. ”

“ When the youngster is four years old, and his pigtail has reached the dignity of seven inches, it is duly braided, and constitutes his only dress. Then, being armed with a basket, he is sent out in this primitive and absurd costume to pick chips. ”

“ Hopes to find old father stout, and am out of pigtail.
Sight o’ pigtail at Gravesend but unfortinately unfit for a dog to chor. I send this by Capt’n’s boy, and buy me pound best pigtail and let it be good—best at 7 diles (Dials) , sign of black boy, and am short of shirts—only took two, whereof one is wored out and tother most.
Capt’n’s boy loves pigtail, so tie it up when bort an’ put in his pocket. Aint so partick’ler about the shirts as present can be washed, but be sure to go to 7 diles sign of Black [Pg 643] boy and git the pigtail as I haint had a cud to chor since thursday. ”

“ But it is not true that they are born with full-sized pigtails. The thing grows, and in its very earliest stages is the prettiest head-dressing imaginable, being soft brown, very fluffy, about three inches long, and dressed as to the end with red silk. ”

“ From 1800 to 1815 the pigtail seems to have been popular, after that time it gradually fell into disuse. The sailors dressed each other’s queues, turn and turn about. It took an hour “to dress and be dressed.” It is not known whether the sailors ever used flour to whiten the queues when plaited, but probably they wore them plain. Those [Pg 142] who had but little hair made false queues of teased-out oakum, which was a sufficiently good imitation to pass muster. ”

“ Naturally a most repulsive-looking man,—a huge, long-armed, broad-shouldered, brutal creature,—he added to his ugliness by cultivating an enormous coal-black beard and allowing his hair to grow until it covered his shoulders like a mane. His beard he braided into innumerable little pigtails, twisting in bits of bright-hued ribbons, and when attacking a prize or boarding a ship he added to his wild and savage aspect by tucking burning slow matches into the mass of black hair and beard that framed his villainous, leering face. ”

“ No other plant is useful to us in so many diverse and remarkable manners. It has been truly said of that friend of man, the domestic pig, that he is all good, from the end of his snout to the tip of his tail; but even the pig, though he furnishes us with so many necessaries or luxuries—from tooth-brushes to sausages, from ham to lard, from pepsine-wine to pork pies—does not nearly approach, in the multiplicity and variety of his virtues, the all-sufficing and world-supplying cocoa-nut. ”

“ Pickles? I can promise you that there is something in pickle for you, hot—very hot and stinging. Plenty of capers—mutton and capers. Mashed potatoes? Was the request for that on the tip of your tongue? Sorry I can give you only half what you want—the mash, not the potatoes. There is nothing comparable in my mind to young pig with crackling. The hide is well striped, cut in lines from the neck to the tail. I think we'll have crackling on our pig before morning.”
He now threw his seeing eye into the depths of the cart, to note the effect his fun had on the child, but he was disappointed. ”

“ More rarely a fine cow, or a yoke of oxen, attracts a [Pg 84] circle of connoisseurs; then the patois becomes more fluent, and the gestures more animated, and the fists of the interested parties are seen flourishing unpleasantly near the disdainful noses of the critics.
The prolonged and penetrating squeal of that pig in the Rue des Cultivateurs reminds me that this interesting animal figures largely in the scenes of market-day. Pork being an important article of peasant diet, Mr. Piggy is always abroad on Monday and contributes largely to the general éclat. ”

“ The Pigeons being drawn and trust, make a fearsing or stopping of some sweet herbs minced, then mince some beef-suet or lard, grated bread, currans, cloves, mace, pepper, ginger, sugar, & 3 or 4 raw eggs. The pigeons being larded & half roasted, stuff them with the foresaid 76 fearsing, and put boil’d cabbidge stuck with a few cloves round about them; bind up every Pigeon several with packthread, then put them in a pipkin a boiling with strong mutton broth, three or four yolks of hard eggs minced small, some large mace, whole cloves, pepper, salt, and a little white-wine ”

“ We saw the sunfishes making their nests in little openings in the rushes where the water was only a few feet deep, ploughing up and shoving away the soft gray mud with their noses, like pigs, forming round bowls five or six inches in depth and about two feet in diameter, in which their eggs were deposited. And with what beautiful, unweariable devotion they watched and hovered over them and chased away prowling spawn-eating enemies that ventured within a rod or two of the precious nest!
The pickerel is a savage fish endowed with marvelous strength and speed. ”

“ This bow-wow meat they were preparing after the fashion of pork: pigs being the only quadruped they have ever seen cooked, they of course are not acquainted with any other way of dressing the animal creation, and a sad bungling job they made of it; for the dogs were old and tough, and the hair adhered most pertinaciously to the skin, and in many places would not come off. ”

“ If the threshers catch him they handle him roughly, beating him, blackening or dirtying his face, throwing him into filth, binding the Sow on his back, and so on; if the bearer of the Sow is a woman they cut off her hair. At the harvest supper or dinner the man who “carried the Pig” gets one or more dumplings made in the form of pigs; sometimes he gets a large dumpling and a number of small ones, all in pig form, the large one being called the sow and the small ones the sucking-pigs. ”

“ In some parts of the country the pig is split down, the head, feet, and tail taken off, the leaf and kidneys and the skirt taken out, the loin and the crop with a certain proportion of the lean cut off, and in some cases the shoulder blade is drawn ”

“ The pigs nowaday aren't as smart as that, but they cut up better at hog-killing time. They aren't quite so trim; indeed, they are nothing but cylinders of meat, whittled to a point at the front end, and set on four pegs, but as you lean on the top-rail of the pens out at the County Fair and look down upon them, you can picture in your mind, without much effort, ham, and sidemeat, and bacon, and spare-ribs, and smoked shoulder, and head-cheese, and liver-wurst, and sausages, and glistening white lard for crullers and pie-crust—Yes, I think pigs are right interesting. ”

“ Take your largest Pigeons and cut them in halves, wash them and dry them, then boil a little water and Salt with some whole Spice, and a little Faggot of sweet Herbs, then put in your Pigeons and boil them, and when they are enough, take some boiled Parsley shred small, some sweet Butter, Claret Wine, and an Anchovy, heat them together, then put in the yolks of Eggs, and make it thick over the Fire, then put in your Pigeons into a Dish, garnished with pickled Barberries and raw Parsley, and so pour over them your Sawce, and serve it to the Table. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Those large, coarse-boned pigs with hair of a white colour and skins more or less mottled with [Pg 24] blue are gradually giving place to pigs with finer hair, skin, bone, and quality of meat. The coarse lop ears are being reduced in size and thickness, whilst the pig itself is becoming less gaunt and its early maturity considerably increased by crossing with the better quality Large White and the quickly maturing Middle White. ”

“ I suspect the pig, after all, was meant for me; but at the unlucky juncture of time being absent, the present somehow went round to Highgate. To confess an honest truth, a pig is one of those things I could never think of sending away. Teals, wigeons, snipes, barn-door fowl, ducks, geese—your tame villatic things—Welsh mutton, collars of brawn, sturgeon, fresh or pickled, your potted char, Swiss cheeses, French pies, early grapes, muscadines, I impart as freely unto my friends as to myself. They are but self-extended ”

“ Take a fat Pig and scald him, and cut off his head, slit him and trusse him up like a Lamb, then being slit through the middle, and flawed, then parboyle him a little, then draw him with parsley as you do a Lamb, then roast it and dridge it, and serve it up with Butter, Pepper, and Sugar. ”

“ Take your pigeons, season and stuff them, flat the breast-bone, and truss them up as you would do for baking, dredge them over with a little flour, and fry them in butter, turning them round till all sides be brown, then put them into a stew-pan with as much brown gravy as will cover them, and let them stew whilst your pigeons be enough; then take part of the gravy, an anchovy shred, a little catchup, a small onion, or a shalot, and a little juice of lemon for sauce, pour it over your pigeons, and lay round them forc'd-meat-balls and crisp bacon. Garnish your dish with crisp parsley and lemon. ”

“ Every house has a pigstye, in which there is generally a very fat pig; and many hens and chickens swarm about the garden-plot, in which they grow Indian corn, beans, and different kinds of roots. These little plots, however, do not look very well attended to. ”

“ Take four boned pigeons, cut them lengthways in two, and make a farce of half a pound of pork sausage meat, half a spoonful of chopped truffles, the same of mushrooms, a few pieces of tongue cut into dice shapes, a bouquet garni, pepper and salt, and one yolk of an egg, all well mixed together. Then divide it into eight equal parts, and fill the halves of the pigeons with it; make them into round balls, cutting off the feet. ”

“ In the feeding of Pigeons, it is adviseable not to let them have more Meat at one time than they can eat, for they are apt to toss it about, and lose a great deal of it; so that the contrivance of filling a stone Bottle with their Meat, and putting the Mouth downwards, so that it may come within an Inch of a Plain or Table, and will give a supply as they feed, is much the best way. ”

“ These smaller teats will produce a reduced quantity of milk, so that the pigling which is unfortunate enough to decide on making this small teat its very own—and each pigling is confined by the others to its own special teat—is certain to be less well developed than its brothers and sisters, even if it should succeed in surviving. ”

“ Nobody knows how a goat will behave. We get our word “caprice,” and “capricious,” from his Latin name.
Back of the columns, is the big sow, with her litter of little pigs, all of them. They are glad enough to go, and they look on the whole thing [115] as a picnic. For now, instead of living on dry winter feed, they will get the juicy grass and herbage of the summer pasture. Mrs. Hog is certainly proud of her young porkers, but her music is hardly up to the carillon standard, for it consists chiefly of grunts, and this is the only language, in which the education of the piggies is carried on. ”

“ The family pig, upon which was centered many hopes, would be feeding in a little pasture near the house, when a great hulking bear would come rolling over the fence and little piggy, with a frantic squeal issuing from one end of him, and his curly tail twisting frantically from the other, would disappear in the dark woods, never to be heard of more. ”

“ When the pig is done, take off the head, separate the face from the chop, cut both in two and take off the ears, take out the stuffing, split the pig in two parts lengthways, lay it in the dish with the head, ears, and feet, which have been cut off, placed on each side, put the stuffing in a bowl with a glass of wine, and as much dripping as will make it sufficiently liquid, put some of it under the pig, and serve the rest in a boat. ”