Hogs & Dogs

 

So imagine stepping outside of a store onto the sidewalk, your children in tow, when a grunting, muddy, 400 pound sow pushes past you, followed by a gaggle of squealing piglets. The children might be delighted by the cute little piglets, but you are less charmed.

     Up until about the Civil War, this free roaming hogs were a common concern in the streets of many American cities, including New York, but in 1880 in the “wild west” of Coffeyville, Kansas, it was still a problem. Oh, there was a hog ordinance on the books. People were not supposed to let their swine roam free. But the Coffeyville newspaper editor had many occasions to rail against its lack of enforcement, from the beginning of the newspaper in 1875 to 1881. 

     In August 1878, he wrote a sarcastic piece asking why the ordinance wasn’t simply repealed, since it wasn’t being enforced. He even wrote a poem:

     “There is something fascinating about the presence of these clean, modest animals in the bustling thoroughfares of a town, and we like to see them around. Indeed, the opinion is quite general that the citizens of every town should go into the business of raising hogs. Our political reporter relieves his burdened emotions on the subject in the following affecting stanzas:

Hogs! Hogs! Hogs!

The hogs! The hogs! The hoarse, grunting hogs!

Which daily meander our streets;

Their savory carcasses neatly besmeared

With ample endowment of sweets.

These graceful, dear loungers, the pets of the town,

Bespeak metropolitan tone;

So modest their presence, no wonder it is

That officers leave them alone.

Not every small town has hogs on its walks;

Nor hogs snuffling in at the doors;

Not even a hog in the neighborhood round;

But Coffeyville numbers her scores.

Of sizes and colors, sexes and age

Observers will find we have all;

Dimensions astonishing, white and black,

Masculine, feminine, old and small.

They ramble our streets, and dig up our yards,

They grunt on our doorsteps and stare

With wondering gaze at impudent hosts

Who shoot at their heads with a chair.

There’s no use in talking; hogs lend a charm

To the life of a city. The tongue

Be dumb that raises notes of dissent; 

Let praises forever be sung.

     In June 1879 he mentioned that people were complaining about owners permitting hogs to run loose at night, and about the city pound keeper for not taking them up. “They have no business out,” he said. There was a street commissioner who also served as the pound keeper. Fines were quite steep for getting a porker out of the pound - $25 per animal. 

     By July, maybe missing his sarcasm, a group of 48 people presented a petition to the city council asking that the hog ordinance be repealed, making the point that the pigs cleaned up the streets, eating the vegetables and other food waste that people threw out.   

     “The sanitary argument, we think is of no force,” the editor countered. “There is no necessity of any accumulation of filth about the streets. Let the waste vegetables be fed in pens and not on the public streets. Hogs at large in a town are not a good recommendation of neat or careful government. A nest of sleeping hogs on one's doorstep is not a pretty sight. A big 400 pound sow, covered all over in mud, and surrounded by a dozen squeaking pigs all on the sidewalk in one’s way is not a delightful meeting. The common mingling of the hog sexes on the public walks is no honor to our taste or refinement. Let the council be firm and the hog nuisance will soon be abated.”

     But it wasn’t. The ordinance was not repealed, but neither was it enforced. The editor continued to complain about free range hogs in downtown Coffeyville in 1880. 

     “The Journal again calls the attention of the city authorities to the running at large of hogs,” he began. “The Ordinance prohibiting the running of these pesky brutes was passed in July 1875.”  He reviewed the years  since its passage –  In 1876 it was ignored. In 1877 a “brief feint was made in that direction.” In 1878 there was some slight improvement. In 1879 the problem was vigorously tackled with “gloves off” for a few weeks, then ignored again. He continued:

     “Now the season of 1880 is begun and the town is annoyed every day by loose hogs running about the streets, rooting up the sidewalks, breaking fences, injuring gardens, and making themselves nuisances generally. We insist that the Council instruct the pound-keeper to execute the Ordinance fully and fearlessly. There is no sense in fooling with this pest any longer.

     In April, a new street commissioner/pound keeper was hired, and according to the editor, “is preparing to make war on loose hogs. The Journal will support him in every legal step he takes to rid the city of  this disgusting nuisance.”

     Almost exactly a year later, a new pound keeper, James L. Skinner was hired. He began “taking up” loose hogs the same day he was appointed. He must have done a good job, because there was not another mention of free roaming hogs on the streets of town again. The Coffeyville hog problem was finally solved.

DOGS

     The same could not be said for dogs, and dogs proved to be a much more wily opponent. In 1876 the Kansas State Legislature passed a dog control law, meant to protect sheep and goats, not people. Everyone in the state was required to pay a $1 tax for each male dog and $2 for female, with the funds going to local schools. Owners were liable for harm caused by their dog if livestock was killed. The law permitted anyone to shoot a dog roaming about on their premises unrestrained. 

     People feared that hogs spread disease to humans, and they were even blamed for headaches. But while those fears were unfounded, of course dogs do cause harm to humans with bites. In a time before rabies vaccine or treatment, that was truly a terrifying prospect. In June 1881 the newspaper editor wrote, “Dr. Harold shot a dog supposed to be mad in his yard yesterday. Muzzle your dogs! The city could raise considerable revenue by taxing all dogs living within the city. Why isn’t the dog ordinance enforced?”

     It was the same old story - an animal ordinance not being enforced. The next year, in 1882 the editor was railing about it. In 1883 he wrote another sarcastic piece, similar to the hog piece only this time lacking in poetry. He ended by saying, “The city might make something immense on the many curs who are constantly roaming about the streets, even if nothing more than to give them to a sausage factory or hire some man to kill them.”

     It sounds harsh to plainly state “kill them.” However, in nearly every city in America today that is what we do with all the excess dogs we have. We use euphemisms like “euthanize” and “put to sleep.” The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals estimates that 390,000 dogs are euthanized each year. Over 10,000 were killed in North Carolina in 2021, the latest figure available at this writing, according to the N.C. Department of Agriculture. So even with the spaying and neutering we have available today, we haven’t solved a problem our ancestors had. 

     Here were some typical items in the Coffeyville newspaper, covering just a few years:

3 April 1886 - Mad Dogs are getting too plentiful for comfort. Kill the canines.

9 June 1887 - Shoot the canine specimens. The dogs continue to take in the town at night and will continue to do so until they are suppressed.

23 June 1887 - Read the dog ordinance. Can’t someone start a sausage factory, soap machine or something similar to work off our surplus canines with? There seems to be no other way.

7 Jan 1888 - Judging from the howling canines within ear reach of our sanctum, a bologna sausage factory could be kept in meat all winter without having to go many hundred yards from a given center.

19 July 1889 - There are too  many worthless dogs about our streets; they make the night hideous and if some of the more worthless ones aren't killed off Coffeyville will be in danger of becoming another Constantinople. Kill off the worthless dogs!

25 June 1890 - So far this year our city has escaped the ravages of mad dogs, so numerously reported in other sections, yet this evidence of good luck should not make our citizens careless. Be on the look-out for mad canines on these hot days. 

     The newspaper ran a sad poem about the homeless dog:

The Collarless Dog

In the mire and the slush, in the groveling rush,

In the dirtiest street in the city,

A miserable waif, uncared for, unsafe

Unknown to protection or pity

I am seeking for bread, to get beatings instead

Or morsels unfit for a hog,

And I’m leading a life of despicable strife,

For I'm only a collarless dog.

I skulk and hide to the opposite side

Of the street, and I shiver and start

When I see in the distance the bain of existence

That merciless dog catcher’s cart.

No shelter, no home, and I ceaselessly roam,

While street gamines kick me and flog.

No pity they know, for being so low

As a miserable collarless dog.

Full well do I know that someday I shall go

O’er the route my brothers have passed

For the dog catcher’s cart and his merciless art

Will win in the struggle at last.

Then away to the pound, no more to be found,

In humanity’s bustle and clog,

and a plunge in the river will settle forever

The woes of the collarless dog.

Sources:

     Grettler, David J. “Environmental Change and Conflict Over Hogs in Early Nineteenth-Century Delaware,” Journal of the Early Republic, Vol 19, No. 2 (Summer 1999), pp. 197-220.

     Guilford, Gwynn, “The Hogs That Created America’s First Urban Working Class,” 16 July 2017, Quartz, https://qz.com/1025640/hogs

     “Hogs! Hogs!” Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 17 Aug 1878, p. 3. 

     Complaining: Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 7 June 1879, p. 5 - 2. 

     “The Hog Ordinance,” Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 12 July 1879, p. 5.

     “Hogs! Hogs! Hogs!” Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 24 April 1880, p. 5. 

     Dogs: Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 18 June 1881, p. 4.

Copyright Andrea Auclair © 2023