Rose. You see, Nancy, it would have been cheaper for you to have built a separate place for your pig, as Jem advised you, and not to have given it the way of going into the cabin to be fed. Indeed I wonder you can bear to have it eat out of the same vessel that boils food for your husband and children.
Nancy. Why, the neighbours'.pigs would be eating it's victuals, if J fed it out of doors.
Rose. Not if you built a sty for it; besides, you .know I am your nearest neighbour, and my pigs are shut up. Jem is going to make an addition to their little place, but the walls of the new part will be high enough to hinder them from getting out, so that they can have light and air, and move about, without doing rawchief toourselves, or others; and their food can be put in over the wall.
Nancy. Why, what do they want with light and air?
Hose. All animals intended for food, are wholesomer, and sweeter to eat, for not being debarred from them; besides, I hate,to shut up any living creature, day and night, in a dark hole. The Almighty has given us the beasts for our service, but has forbidden us to torment them; and I think we should do all we can to save them from unnecessary pain. Indeed this is generally our interest, as well as our duty. It is very well known by the great jockies, as they call them, that a horse will thrive
and fatten twice as well with gentleness, and good treatment, as he will with ill usage and blows, though he got the same quantity of food46.
Nancy. Now, Rose, do you believe that of a brute beast?
Rose. I believe it, because I have heard it from those who have made their fortune by horses, and have the best right to know them47. Besides^ half the shocking accidents that happen from their restiveness would be avoided, if men treated them with quietness and good temper.
- Cottage dialogues among the Irish peasantry, with notes and a preface, M. Edgeworth,
Maria Edgeworth,1811, p.137.
Irish Chieftain's feast
