The learned pig was a pig taught to respond to commands in such a way that it appeared to be able to answer questions by picking up cards in its mouth. By choosing cards it answered arithmetical problems and spelled out words. The "learned pig" caused a sensation in London during the 1780s. It became a common object of satire, illustrated caricature and a subject in popular literature.
The original "learned pig" was followed by other trained pigs, which subsequently became a feature of fairs and other public attractions in Europe and America during the 19th century. In the words of G.E. Bentley, They served as subjects for cartoons by Rowlandson and moral essays in children's books and savage doggerel by Blake, and they illustrated the manners of the English in works by Joseph Strutt and Robert Southey and Thomas Hood. These freaks of learning clearly exercised a fascination among the literary geniuses of the age as they did among the swinish multitude.
The original pig The original "learned pig" was trained by a Scotsman, Samuel Bisset, who ran a travelling novelty show. The idea of an "intellectual" animal was not new. A similar attraction known as "Marocco the thinking horse" (c.1586–c.1606) had been exhibited over a century earlier; there were also contemporary examples of the "horse of knowledge", exhibited for example at Astley's Amphitheatre. But performing horses were nothing unusual. No performing pigs are known to have been trained before. The pig was shown with great success in Dublin. After Bisset's death the pig was taken over by a Mr Nicholson, who toured it in Britain. It was exhibited in Nottingham in 1784, coming to London in the following year." According to publicity at the time,
This entertaining and sagacious animal casts accounts by means of Typographical cards, in the same manner as a Printer composes, and by the same method sets down any capital or Surname, reckons the number of People present, tells by evoking on a Gentleman's Watch in company what is the Hour and Minutes; he likewise tells any Lady's Thoughts in company, and distinguishes all sorts of colours. The show was a great success, and the pig later toured the provincial towns, returning to London later in the year and then moving on to the continent of Europe. After a career of four years a report stated that the pig died in 1788. However, a later report claimed that it had just returned from France following the revolution of 1789, and was ready to "discourse on the Feudal System, the Rights of Kings and the Destruction of the Bastille". The phenomenon caused much comment. James Boswell recalls conversations with Samuel Johnson in which he joked about the pig's scholarship. Johnson never saw the pig. He died just before it came to London, but he commented on a report of its show in Nottingham. He suggested that "the pigs are a race unjustly calumniated. Pig has, it seems, not been wanting to man, but man to pig. We do not allow time for his education, we kill him at a year old." Another man present joked that Alexander Pope would not have used the pig as a symbol of "the lowest degree of grovelling instinct" in his works if this creature had been known to him, but added that the pig had probably been subject to some form of torture to force it to respond to commands. Johnson replied that at least it had escaped slaughter: "the pig has no cause to complain; he would have been killed the first year if he had not been educated, and protracted existence is a good recompence for very considerable degrees of torture." The discussion about how the pig had been trained also led to disputes about the cognitive abilities of pigs; whether the animal actually recognised letters or even words, or whether it was simply responding to direct prompting. The phenomenon was also discussed in instructional literature aimed at children, to describe the essential difference between human and animal capacities and to warn against cruelty to animals, on the assumption that the pigs were badly beaten by their trainers to force them to behave. Mrs Trimmer in her children's book The Robin Redbreasts (1788), "designed to teach children the proper treatment of animals", mentions the pig in chapter entitled "The Cruel Boy": aiming to teach that animals are not "mere machines, actuated by the unerring hand of Providence", it says that the sight of the Learned Pig, "which has lately been shown in London, has deranged these ideas, and I know not what think".
Later pigs
In 1798 a learned pig appeared in the United States. William Frederick Pinchbeck displayed a "Pig of Knowledge" in New England. He claimed to have toured all the major towns of the Union and introduced the pig to President John Adams, to "universal applause". Pinchbeck later explained his methods of training the pig in a pamphlet. He denied that any form of torture was involved, insisting that it was better to "coax" the pig to follow instructions. The animal would soon learn to respond to the slightest hints of movement from the trainer. He stated that credulous spectators accused him of using witchcraft, one stating that "his performances were the effects of the Black Art; that the Pig ought to be burnt, and the Man banished, as he had no doubt but...[his trainer] familiarly corresponded with the devil." Others suggested that the pig was evidence of reincarnation: "the spirit of the grunting philosopher might once have animated a man." In the early 19th century, Nicholas Hoare, an illusionist, exhibited "Toby the sapient pig" in London. Toby could "discover a person's thoughts", a skill "never heard of before to be exhibited by an animal of the swine race". Around 1817 Toby also published an autobiography, The life and adventures of Toby, the sapient pig: with his opinions on men and manners. Written by himself. A pig owned by Pinchbeck was shown in London between 1818 and 1823. According to his publicity, the pig had acquired his wisdom from "Souchanguyee, the Chinese Philosopher." He answered questions by "pointing to cards, letters, and persons in the audience." "Toby" became a standard name for a learned pig. The writer Harrison Weir depicts a learned pig called Toby, which he saw a "year ago at Camberwell Fair" for a penny. According to Harrison, the pig carried a correctly numbered card to a person who had called out a number; it spelled "vittels," and then it left to have some, "with a joyful grunt, and the show was over."
Caricature
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