The cruelty to pigs concerning which every Shanghailander now is aware, date far hack in history even to the legendary' period, and this cruelty begins far up into the count and early in life.
When "little piggle goes to market" for the first time, then only a few weeks old he is taken from his mother's side, has his four little feet tied together and is either carried from a coolie's pole balanced on his shoulder to market or is put in baskets and carried by wheelbarrow to market In this process "little piggle" squeals.
Too small to be killed, a term of luxury follows in which he ma squeal each day not because he is brutally treated but because he piggishly wants more from the trough ihan is coming to him. He passes a short life of almost perfect ease and luxury and gets more than enough to eat in order to hurry the completion of the fattening process.
After all a pig is only really worth anything when he is killed. Live pigs would be worthless in Kiangpeh were it not for the anticipation of the price they'll bring at the time of butchering. They are not needed for scavengers and are never used as such. Too little goes to waste in Kiangpeh for even a pig to live on.
The Pig "Trek" Begins Fattened to the proper weight the cruelty begins, In other parts of China two men may be hired to carry one pig, but in Kiangpeh one man carries two pigs on his wheelbarrow. Tied securely with ropes the squealing pigs are carried upside-down for miles on a wheelbarrow in the scorching heat of summer as well as the cold blasts of winter, for the Chinese markets need pigs all the year round. Without refrigerator service, it becomes a necessity to carry only live pigs to ensure fresh pork in the summer.
From every trail in the hinterland one sees pigs drawn by wheelbarrow to the canal banks to be shipped by pig boats to the banks of the Yangtze. there to be transferred to ships for Shanghai, or the wheelbarrows continue their journey to the river bank, here to be transferred by lighters to! the waiting pig boats Many hundred of thousands of pigs are thus cruelly shipped from their once abundant life in the home pi pen to the Shanghai slaughter-house trail of cruelty
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.