_To the Editor._
Sir,--To the fact of the underwritten narrative there are many living
witnesses of high respectability. Anatomists and philosophers may not
think it unworthy their notice, and the lovers of the marvellous will
doubtless be interested by a subject which assimilates with the taste of
all.
On the 14th of December, 1810, several considerable falls of the cliffs,
both east and westward of Dover, took place; and one of these was
attended by a fatal domestic catastrophe. A house, situated at the base
of that part of the cliffs between Moat’s Bulwark and where the Dover
Gas Company’s works are built, was buried, with its inmates, consisting
of the father, mother, and five of their children, and a sister’s child.
The father only was dug from the ruins alive. All his family perished
with the ruin of his household property.
Behind the house, which stood just clear of the cliffs’ base, in an
excavation, was a pig-sty; which, when the cliff fell, was inhabited by
a solitary and very fat hog, supposed to weigh about eight score. In the
midst of his distress, the unfortunate owner of the quadruped forgot
this animal; and when it occurred to his recollection, so much time had
passed since the accident, that the pig was numbered with the dead. In
the ensuing summer, on the evening of the 23d of May, some workmen of
the Ordnance department, going home from labour, stopped, as they had
sometimes done before, to contemplate the yet remaining ruin. While thus
engaged, a sound broke the silence of the moment. It seemed like the
feeble grunting of a hog. The men listened, and the sound was repeated,
till it ceased to be matter of doubt. One of them immediately went to
the commanding officer of the Ordnance, and returned with a party of the
miners, who set to work; and as soon as they had cleared away the chalk
from before the chasm, the incarcerated animal came staggering forth,
more like the anatomy of a pig than a living one. Its skin was covered
with a long shaggy coat: the iris had disappeared from its eyes; and the
pupils were pale, and had almost lost their colour. Nothing beyond these
particulars was apparent externally. With great attention to its
feeding, the creature recovered from its debility, and its coat fell
off, and was renewed as before. When I saw this hog in the following
November, the eyes were of a yellowish tint, and the iris only
discoverable by a faint line round the pupil; no defect showed itself in
the vision of the organ: and, but for being told that the pig before me
was the one buried alive for six months, there was nothing about it to
excite curiosity. To the owner it had been a source of great profit, by
its exhibition, during the summer season, at the neighbouring towns and
watering-places; and, finally, it ended its existence in the way usual
to its race, through the hands of the butcher.
I have stated the supposed weight of this long-buried quadruped at the
time of its incarceration, to be about eight score, or twenty stone;
when liberated, it was weighed, and had lost half of its former
quantity, being then four score. A peculiar character of the pig is--its
indiscriminate gluttony and rapid digestion. The means by which the life
of this particular animal was sustained during the long period of its
imprisonment, may be worth the consideration of the zootomist.