When Pigs Take The Stage - I love not a gaping pig

There can be few creatures on show that have more contempt for their audience than the pig. The dog may yawn in your face, the hen sit down and lay on egg as a protest against the waste of ber time, but the pig literally turns his back on the whole proceedings: Retiring to the farthest corner of his pen, he burrows deep into the straw leaving nothing visible but his rear and a curly tail. 

We had a pig-show in our town this week, quite an important show according to the breeders of pigs, though the local housewives, hurrying to the shops to buy “half a-pound"of best back", scarcely: threw a glance at the gate behind which the origin of their bacon was on view. 

Most of the pigs lay peacefully in their pens round an enclosed yard, ‘but, in the centre, on an improvised stage, the champions appeared one by one to listen to a dissertation on their charms, for these prize winners were not going home to be praised and patted like the heroes of Crufts, but were destined to provide the nation with pork or with more prize pigs. 

I went behind the scenes where lads in white coats were hovering round the stars, putting the final touches to their toilet with sloths and brushes. Each animal in turn had to be roused from sleep and guided across the yard by the combined efforts of a lad with a board and two other men with a hurdle.

There must be few stupider animals, I thought, as I watched each sleepy beast wandering vaguely in any but the right direction till he could be Shepherded along an improvised pathway between packing cases onto the stage. From in front came the voice of the auctioneer, who must surely have held a championship of his own for rapid talking. 

"Eighteen, eighteen, did I hear eighteen, nineteen may I say..." 

Suddenly his voice changed. For a moment he talked slowly. "This, gentlemen, is a nice pig. I can tell you some interesting things about this pig.” 

He did: He told how its grandparents came of vast families, how its father and mother came from even vaster ones, and he became simply lyrical as he culminated in the feats of its mother. 

"She, gentlemen," he proclaimed “has already produced seventy-five pigs in svene litters." 

The pig turned a sleepy eye on me and snorted once, and I could not meet his look. Now I knew the meaning of those contemptuous backs, for I had been guilty of maternal pride over but three sons, and thought myself justified. Sadly humbled, I slipped past the averted backs of the prize sows and left them to their pride.