CONJURE ME A
BATTLE SCENE
One like in a Napoleonic era painting,
OK. The kind with the guys splashed
all over the foreground, bleeding from
stab wounds and sabers, with wild-eyed
horses staring down in horror. They
never knew what was going on. A real
shame to drag them in. Just today I
was reading another horrid thing -
about the attempt, in 1849, after yet
another cholera outbreak had swept
the city streets, killing many. The
outbreak jolted the city into taking
up arms once again against the
immemorial foe : loose running,
rutting and grunting, garbage-feeding
hogs, allowed free-rein over all the
lower city streets. Over the strenuous
opposition of the downtown poor,
who used them for the pickings,
communally, as food, selecting and
dressing at will for pork, the police
flushed five to six thousand pigs out of
cellars and garrets and drove an
estimated twenty-thousand swine north
to the upper wards. BUT - at the same
time - in an exterminating frenzy
spurred on by municipal bounties,
3,250 stray dogs were killed in the
streets, mostly by small boys with
clubs. The authorities, moreover, kept
up their campaign year after year, in
the period 1849, '50, '51, and '52.
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