Browsing: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 6

39. Left blank in MS. The quotation mark after “Learned Pig” has been supplied. Most of the amazing animals in this passage—lions at the Tower of London, performing dogs and hares, and particularly “the Learned Pig,” which made its London debut early in 1785, are discussed in Richard D. Altick, The Shows of London, Cambridge, 1978, see esp. chs. 3 and 7, and illustration 6 on p. 41. By 1812 both Sadler's Wells and Drury Lane had dropped their opposition to animal acts (same, p. 310–311; see also Wheatley, London Past and Present , [Sadler's Wells]).