The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-09-16
SWINE DEPARTMENT |
ONLY NAME STAYS
Hogs at Fair Clear Out of Old
Farm Glass.
Elite of Swine World Catch
Eye of Farmer.
BATHED, COMBED, MANICURED
All Undergo Severe Cleaning
Early Every Morning.
Exhibit Outclasses Any Former
Display of Hogs Here.

Court records show conclusiveIy
that "Pigs is Pigs" The Supreme
court decided that once and for all
in a case from Wichita.
To the contrary and notwithstand-
ing, as A. P. Tone Wilson would say
preliminary to questioning the truth
and veracity of opposing counsel, the
drssed-up, bathed and perfumed hogs
out at the state fair grounds are not
the pigs your carried swill to out on
the farm fifteen or twenty years ago.
They are not even second-cousins
Most Topeka people either drifted
in from the farm or have lived here
long enough to remember when a pig
pen was a favorite backyard decora-
ton, but they will have difficulty in
finding in their memory anything that
resembled even in a remote degree
these "autocrats of the breakfast
table, on exhibition in the state fair
swine barns.
The only familiar thing they will
find will be the different family names
nailed up over the different family
apartments. In spite of their climb
from the crude surroundings of their
ancestors the older families have re-
Their Who's Who shows the Po-
land Chinas, the Duroc-Jerseys, the
Berkshires, the Chester Whites, and
the other old and well-established
names. Their family trees are the
most rapidly growing vegetation in
this part of the country. With pedi-
grees running back for twenty or thir-
ty generations these aristocrats de-
mand and receive the respect due
their social station.
No Mud for Them.
When their ancestors were on earth
years ago they. were kept in poorly
drained pens where they wal1owed in
the mud to kill the fleas and reduce
their temperature and fished whole
ears of corn out of the muck and mire
and made a meal on them. Hard
pushed by thirst they drank of the
same mixture of mud and water in
which they had wallowed
But not so with the members of the
Four Hundred at the fair grounds. If
any toilet or table convenience for
the modern hog is missing out there
the owners have not heard about 1t.
They see no mud except thru the win
dows. They have no fleas and if their
temperature began to rise their keep
ers would install electric fans. Most
of them never saw a whole ear of
corn. They seldom see even a whole
grain. The keepers put a lot of
shelled corn in a hopper and the hogs
nose the hopper around for more and
crack each grain in two or three
pieces. They drink from patent
troughs will will admit no more than
the end of the nose. A hog cannot get
his mouth and a single foot in the
water at the same time. After maxi
ing a meal on cracked corn and water
they walk up to a perforated cylinder
containing some sort of oily toilet
preparation and rub against It, That
takes the place of the mud thei-. an
cestors gloried and wallowed in.
Combed and Manicured.
Early in the mornings before the
crowds arrive they are combed,
brushed and manicured, the beds are
removed and new sand floors laid.
Then the curtains are pulled back and
the different hog families are ready
for visitors. A lot of peculiar look
ing blue and white cloths were hang
ing in the swine barn this afternoon
and they look like they might be
pajamas.
1t is easy for one accustomed to the
old fashioned hog to believe what the
hogmen at the state fair say-that the
animals exhibited this year outclass
sition heretofore. They are the pick
of the hog kingdom in the middle
west Crowds watch some of the pens
because they contain mountains of fat,
others because the sign says the pen
corrals an animal of note. In spite
of the races, the midway shows and
the hundred and one other things to
see on the fair grounds, there has