Francis Liardet: Professional Recollections on Points of Seamanship, Discipline, &c., 1849.

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Pigs.

The discontinuance of taking pigs on board ships of war, wherever it may have originated, has been one of great service in general. However careful you may be about the cleanliness of these animals, you cannot prevent numberless disagreeables which must always attend them, more particularly when in the confined space of a ship; but with a close day, a strong breeze, and all the ports shipped, it was then not very pleasant, nor do we suppose healthy for the crew. We have known the pigs to dispute the right to the manger with the fore-topmen, on many occasions, while working the cables.

But the part which would have been most disapproved of by the officers, had it been known generally to them, would have been, that those very pigs were fed in a great measure, by the ship's company. We have on several occasions heard it remarked by seamen, that they fed the pigs, but the officers ate them. We have seen much bad feeling produced, by these animals being made the medium of a black-list, in the following manner. The pigs were allowed to run about the decks just as they liked, so many pigs to each black-list man, and if the pigs made any mess about the deck, the black-list men, provided with swabs, shovels, and brooms, were obliged to clean after them.

Francis Liardet: Professional Recollections on Points of Seamanship, Discipline, &c.
William Woodward, Portsea, 1849. 8vo, frontisp., (6), x, 319 pp, 1 col. plate of signals.

Transcribed by Lars Bruzelius

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