There’s a moment in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure (in chapter 10) when Jude and his wife, Arabella, are forced to kill their pig – the usual slaughterman has been held up by a sudden snowfall. It doesn’t start well:
Jude, rope in hand, got into the sty, and noosed the affrighted animal, who, beginning with a squeak of surprise, rose to repeated cries of rage […] while Jude held him Arabella bound him down, looping the cord over his legs to keep him from struggling. The animal’s note changed its quality. It was not now rage, but the cry of despair; long-drawn, slow and hopeless.
Jude loses courage, unwilling to kill ‘a creature I have fed with my own hands’, but Arabella is made of sterner country genes and, moreover, has clear ideas about how the process should be accomplished:
The meat must be well bled, and to do that he must die slow. We shall lose a shilling a score if the meat is red and bloody! Just touch a vein, that’s all. I was brought up to it, and I know. Every good butcher keeps un bleeding long. He ought to be eight or ten minutes dying, at least.
Thankfully, for the reader as well as the pig, Jude ignores his wife’s instructions and the killing is ‘mercifully done’. Nonetheless, Hardy makes much of the continuing drama. First there is the death itself, in which human emotions such as blame, betrayal and friendship are assigned to the poor pig:
The dying animal’s cry assumed its third and final tone, the shriek of agony; his glazing eyes riveting themselves on Arabella with eloquently keen reproach of a creature recognizing at last the treachery of those who had seemed his only friends.
Finally, after much mess and confusion – ‘forming a dismal, sordid, ugly spectacle’ – we become aware of the impact of the event on Jude: the pig-killing provokes much soul-searching and self-doubt. Perhaps more significantly, the whole experience, Hardy suggests, is not just a matter of private discomfort but an act with more far-reaching implications about what it is to be human and about the nature of our relationship with the natural world:
Jude felt dissatisfied with himself as a man at what he had done […] The white snow, stained with the blood of his fellow-mortal, wore an illogical look to him as a lover of justice, not to say a Christian; but he could not see how the matter was to be mended. No doubt he was, as his wife had called him, a tender-hearted fool.
I think about Little Pig lying in the straw and Jude’s distress at dispatching an animal he’s fed with his own hands. I wonder how much stronger such an attachment would be if it arises not only from feeding a pig, but from nursing it through sickness, how much more ‘illogical’ the justice of slaughter might seem. Am I, like Jude, a tender-hearted fool? If we coax Little Pig back to health, will I really be able to kill him afterwards? I don’t have an answer to such questions, and the asking of them disturbs me.
Spring 1785. Nicholson has brought his menagerie out of winter retirement to London but his pig, like ours, is causing concern. It’s thin; too thin for a pig. Eighteenth-century pigs are rotund and lardy but Nicholson’s sagacious black pig is skinny like an old dog. In the reports I unearth of the new season’s entertainment, it becomes clear that some of those watching are concerned about its well-being: ‘what with the weather, and the concourse of visitors,10 the poor animal is so roasted that its skin is almost crackling,’ writes one sympathetic observer. This is the age of the cottage pig; more and more people have one or two pigs of their own, in the garden, on the street, in a sty or in the house. My house was built around this time and follows a pattern for many of the local cottage-farms: living accommodation on the first floor and, beneath it, a small dark room – a den rather than a room, really – where the pigs and cattle were kept, warming the residents above. There’s still a stone manger built into the wall.
More people keeping pigs means more people knowing what a healthy animal should look like; more people growing fond of their family pig means more people complaining about unhappy practices. Nicholson is known to be a disciplinarian, coaching his performing troupe with fervour. Some of those watching begin to suspect he’s being unkind to his pig: ‘great torture must have been employed ere the indocility of the animal could have been subdued,’11 complains Henry White, a young clergyman.
When the whispers of ill-treatment reach Nicholson, he defends his methods, and his slim pig, but without giving away his secrets: ‘a plenitude in the belly,’12 he explains to London Unmask’d, a popular journal, ‘would diminish his pupil’s adherence to discipline.’ A fat pig cannot be a wise pig, he suggests; a well-fed pig will have little incentive to learn. All those engaged with training a pig know that what works is patience and companionship, not brutality: ‘You are not to beat him into the knowledge of your design,13 but coax him to it, if possible.’ The pig will want to please, and will try to understand you. He’ll make an effort. If you begin with a secret language of ‘snuffling’, talking to the pig through your nose, in time you won’t even need that: ‘the animal is so sagacious that he will appear to read your thoughts.’
There’s a lesson to be learned here about the best way to go about things, and the right way to treat an animal, and in an age of moral certainty, publishers pick up on Nicholson and his black pig as a good model for children. Alongside the robins Pecksy, Flapsy, Robin and Dick in Sarah Trimmer’s popular book Fabulous Histories Designed for the Instruction of Children, Respecting Their Treatment of Animals (1786), for example, appears a learned pig very much like Nicholson’s:
The creature was shewn for a sight in a room provided for the purpose,14 where a number of people assembled to view his performances. Two alphabets of large letters on card paper were placed on the floor; one of the company was then desired to propose a word which he wished the Pig to spell. This his keeper repeated to him, and the Pig picked out every letter successively with his snout, and collected them together till the word was compleated. He was then desired to tell the hour of the day, and one of the company held a watch to him, which he seemed with his cunning little eyes to examine very attentively; and having done so, picked out figures for the hours and minutes of the day […] And do you think, mama, said Harriet, that the Pig knows the letters, and can really spell words?
A few years later, A Present for a Little Boy, which features remarkable animals of all kinds, was to urge its young readers to consider their own conduct in comparison with such a well-behaved pig: ‘some pigs have evinced so teachable a disposition,15 that children might take a useful lesson from their conduct,’ the author suggested. The anti-cruelty message is clear and personal: ‘for little boys have obstinate tempers, some have been beaten, others have had their hair pulled, or ears pinched, to make them mind their spelling: how difficult then must it be to teach a pig to converse with men?’
Mr Nicholson is fat; his pig is thin. Neither fact seems to deter spectators. Nicholson installs himself and his menagerie in suitable lodgings at 55 Charing Cross, a stone’s throw from the Admiralty building. He puts together an ambitious programme, and works his troupe hard, advertising four shows a day, seven days a week. They all sell out. And it’s not the singing ducks or dancing dogs or performing rabbits which sell tickets – all of these have been seen before, so many times – it’s the one and only, not to be missed, never to be forgotten Learned Pig.
Despite the stir they’ve caused in country fairs, it appears that Nicholson is rather taken by surprise when the metropolitan crowd warms so quickly and so fervently to his pig. According to the entertainment schedules for the summer, it seems as though the plan had been to run the show for a few weeks in London and then move on to Oxford and Bath. But clearly Nicholson can’t bring himself to turn his back on such enthusiastic and affluent audiences. He makes the decision to remain in the capital, and instead of taking his learned pig to the learned streets of Oxford, he goes off in search of larger, more fashionable premises.
Poor Samuel Bisset. Lucky Mr Nicholson. The black pig apparently cannot fail. It makes people marvel. It makes them laugh. It makes a fortune. At a time when sc
ience (and pseudo-science) is capturing the popular imagination, a performing pig fits nicely into an atmosphere of experimentation and theory, mystery and invention. It’s a genuine curiosity, a scientific feat of training, if you will, which raises intriguing questions about the nature of beasts and about civil-ized society. It prompts discussion and disrupts convention: here, after all, is a creature of the working classes performing to everyone, regardless of income or rank, most certainly including the wealthy and the influential among its greatest admirers. With a quiet nod to revolution, here’s the mundane hog of impecunious families laying on a show for the gentry. Like the best of performers, the Learned Pig captures something of the spirit of the times; the act is modern and risky and tucked below the glamour there’s something just a little dangerous. John Nicholson and his pig probably don’t know any of this, or pause to consider the wider implications of a black pig that can spell, but they ride their wave of luck and good-timing with flair, and through the baking summer of 1785 they line their purses with gold.
It’s not a surprise that Nicholson’s pig struggled with the heat during packed performances at Charing Cross, ‘its skin […] almost crackling’. Pigs don’t have sweat glands and don’t pant like dogs, so they can languish in warm conditions. When the opportunity arises, they love nothing better than to wallow in thick, wet mud. This is not just sloth. Mud acts as an efficient coolant, and when it dries on their skin and in their bristles, it provides a valuable protective layer against the sun.
In central London, the chances of Nicholson’s pig finding a refreshing wallow were slight, but our field is set up with just such a thing in mind. There’s a natural dip in the land close to a hedge, about the size of a family bath, shaded, hemmed in by exposed tree roots. The hose snakes to it, over the wall and through the brambles from Jean-Claude’s tap, and the soil there is naturally heavy with clay. We’ve tried soaking the depression with water: it quickly becomes squelchy and remains damp for hours. When the weather turns hot, the pigs can loll here in the shadow of the oaks; as they wear away the grass and weeds it will rapidly become a doughy mud-tub.
At the end of the afternoon, when we walk round to the enclosure to check on Little Pig, it’s not hot. But the day has been warm and close, and the sun has come through now with sudden brutality, wilting the daisies against the barn wall. Since we left Little Pig so mopey and sick, we’re naturally concerned about what we might find, and we approach the field quietly, in the hope of seeing the state of the pigs before they know we’re there. We swish through the lengthening meadow grass as we cut across from the lane and creep under the ash; from here we can peer round and see the mouth of the shelter and most of the field.
Little Pig has gone. There’s a large dent in the straw and more straw scattered on the ground all around the shelter, but there’s no pig. The field, too, appears empty. Is he well enough already to tackle the slope into the woods?
We straddle the fence, inelegantly. Ed goes quickly to the woodland boundary and crouches, peering into the trees, trying to catch sight of a black pig in black shadows. At the same time, I take a few steps along the perimeter, down the shallow slope behind the shelter, in front of the nettle bed. I see Little Pig a few yards away; his snout, the top of his ears, his thick round buttocks, all poke up above the grass and dock and clover, the rest of him is out of sight in the wallow. I call Ed. Little Pig doesn’t move. Ed and I approach together. The pig’s ears twitch. He snorts quietly, nothing more than a strangled breath. But still he doesn’t move. Then, just as we reach him, he realizes we’re there. Slouched deep in the cradle of damp, cool soil he hasn’t heard us approach and now he starts violently, squeals, yanks himself from the wallow and scatters towards the nettle bed.
A startled pig, not a sick pig.
The commotion has brought Big Pig from the edge of the woods where he must have been foraging not far away. He’s pleased to see us and trots over happily. Little Pig, reassured that we’re not murderous intruders, nods and puffs and barges me in the leg. We watch them for a while, astounded. Can Little Pig really be this well, already? It’s been little more than half a day since we found him slumped in the straw, panting and miserable. Now, there seems to be nothing wrong with him. When we put food down, he tucks in with gusto, nipping Big Pig on the shoulder with his teeth when he feels he’s missing out. He’s moving fluidly; his eyes are bright and clear; his breathing seems to have gone back to normal. He’s noisy and active. And as soon as he’s full up with grain and tired of our company, he takes himself back to the wallow. Perhaps he just needed some spa treatment.
All of this is excellent news, of course, and we’re delighted. We walk home in the dusk with the nightingales casting circles of song along the lane, basking in the satisfaction of having averted disaster. But the following morning, we realize that we have to administer the follow-up injection to a healthy, spirited, capricious Little Pig. If injecting a poorly pig is difficult, how much more testing is it going to be now? We consider scrapping the dose, but we don’t want to do irresponsible things with antibiotics, and we’re concerned that without the full treatment there may be some kind of relapse. So we head off to the enclosure with the bottle and the needle; the last needle.
It’s Ed’s turn to be vet. We lure the pigs to the trough with a sludge of peelings and Ed hovers, poised, waiting for a rare moment of stillness. He makes a jab; misses. Little Pig has his snout in the food; the recommended injection site, between the base of the ear and the shoulder, is at the action end of things as he rummages and snuffles. He flips aside carrot peelings in favour of apple cores with a quick, strong movement which forces us backwards; Big Pig, an added complication, thrusts his head under Little Pig’s and they jostle for a while, their necks entwined. It takes them a long while to settle the dispute. Eventually, Big Pig moves to the other side of the trough and there’s a lull in the bickering. But now the food is nearly gone, and when it’s finished the pigs will be gone, too, off into the woods where we’ll have no chance of keeping up with them, let alone catching them.
I put a hand to Little Pig’s head, slide it down the neck. Here … the hair is parted. Ed is quick. The needle goes in. In the second or two before Little Pig shrugs us off and prods his foot into the trough to upend it, scattering the last scraps so that the pigs scatter in response, the dose is delivered. Well, most of the dose. The rest dribbles into his bristles; the final drops drip from the end of the needle into the grass below. The pigs loiter briefly and then set off for the woods, one behind the other, their haunches sashaying, their tails twirling like the ends of skipping ropes.
And so it’s June; summer. Full-blown, balmy-night, heat-like-fist-fights summer. The cockerel is crowing the advance of dawn in the early hours, the frogs are languid, the gloss of spring is tarnished. In the fields all around the house, the hay is being cut and turned. Ancient red tractors growl up and down clearing wakes, swallows ducking and diving above them to catch the flies. The air is thick with dust, seeds, pollen, the light only dribbling through. The hens scrabble delightedly in the piles of drying grass. We sneeze. Both pigs are rumbustiously healthy.
When I see Big Pig rummaging through the summer hedges or Little Pig lazily nosing grubs from the dry stones of the wall, it gives me pleasure. They are living well. But sometimes I’m troubled, too, because I know that very few pigs have the kind of genuine free-range existence that ours do; very few are able to indulge their insatiable instinct to labour and forage and explore. Some are kept outdoors, with a roomy pen, natural light and freedom to wallow and graze. Many, many more are confined inside sheds and barns, their noses ringed to prevent digging, their movements restrained; others spend at least part of their time packed into crates. Most pigs raised for meat endure short lives in a restricted, unnatural environment. If we buy cheap, mass-produced pork, this is the system we’re buying into. We know that. But the more I get to see of Big Pig and Little Pig, the more this thought of wholesale intensive farming disquiets me. An
d there’s something else, too. Because I begin to realize that at the other end of the scale, when we give our pigs the ‘deluxe’ version of life, with oak woods and meadows, entirely natural habitats and rhythms, it perhaps becomes more, rather than less, difficult to justify their deaths. There can be no argument, after all, that we’ll be putting them out of any kind of misery, only that we’ll be denying them further months and years of contentment. Surely if we care this much for our pigs, we won’t kill them?
We’ve struck some kind of implicit deal with Big Pig and Little Pig: we allow them to range and eat as they like and in return they do the work converting all that exercise and nutrition into excellent pork. Their lives are given over to a purpose. This, for us, is an acceptable transaction but, of course, it’s a one-sided agreement. The pigs have no say in it. And while on a day-to-day basis this smallholding bliss is infinitely better for them than a battery existence in a huge commercial farm, the outcome is ultimately exactly the same. It’s a riddle which taxes me. I’m determined to give my pigs good lives, the best I can. I’m committed to raising them responsibly, with their welfare constantly in mind. But the agricultural animal is a unique and curious beast, neither companion nor wild animal, an in-between creature which, in the end, is reduced to its role as a food source. The smallholder’s animal, or the cottage pig, inhabits an even more ambiguous place, close to the family that’s raising it but destined to be stewed in their pots. I’m not quite sure what it will take to extricate myself from this ambiguity. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to see Big Pig and Little Pig clearly, when the time comes, as nothing more than meat.
Big Pig, Little Pig: A Tale of Two Pigs in France Page 13