“I have been a rector for many years,” writes a clergyman, “and have
often heard and read of tithe-pigs, though I have never met with a
specimen of them. But I had once a little pig given to me which was of a
choice breed, and only just able to leave his mother. I had to convey
him by carriage to the X station; from thence, twenty-three miles to Y
station, and from thence, eighty-two miles to Z station, and from there,
eight miles by carriage. I had a comfortable rabbit-hutch of a box made
for him, with a supply of fresh cabbages for his dinner on the road. I
started off with my wife, children, and nurse; and of these impediments
piggy proved to be the most formidable. First, a council of war was held
over him at X station by the railway officials, who finally decided that
this small porker must travel as ‘two dogs.’ Two dog tickets were
therefore procured for him; and so we journeyed on to Y station. There a
second council of war was held, and the officials of Y said that the
officials of X (another line) might be prosecuted for charging my piggy
as two dogs, but that he must travel to Z as a horse, and that he must
have a huge horse-box entirely to himself for the next eighty-two miles.
I declined to pay for the horse-box—they refused to let me have my
pig—officials swarmed around me—the station master advised me to pay for
the horse-box and probably the company would return the extra charge. I
scorned the probability, having no faith in the company—the train (it was
a London express) was already detained ten minutes by this wrangle; and
finally I whirled away bereft of my pig. I felt sure that he would be
forwarded by the next train, but as that would not reach Z till a late
hour in the evening, and it was Saturday, I had to tell my pig tale to
the officials; and not only so, but to go to the adjacent hotel and hire
a pig-stye till the Monday, and fee a porter for seeing to the pig until
I could send a cart for him on that day. Of course the pig was sent
after me by the next train; and as the charge for him was less than a
halfpenny a mile, I presume he was not considered to be a horse. Yet
this fact remains—and it is worth the attention of the Zoological
Society, if not of railway officials—that this small porker was never
recognised as a pig, but began his railway journey as two dogs, and was
then changed into a horse.”