A Pig in a Poke

A hand colored copper plate engraving, by James Gillray, first published by Samuel William Fores in 1788 this image issued by Henry G. Bohn in 1847-1851 as part of The Works of James Gillray from the Original Plates with the Addition of Many Subjects Not Before Collected.

Depicting four men playing whist at a rectangular table ; each has one card in his hand and is about to play the last trick, the tricks piled on the table show that each side has six tricks. Sir Joseph Mawbey, on the left, looks at his partner on the right, a very stout man wearing a legal wig, both hold court cards (diamonds).

The man seated on the farther side of the table looks sideways at Mawbey, saying : "O-h! you’ve brought your Pigs to a fine Market!" His partner, in back view, is a very thin man whose hair extends grotesquely on each side of his head ; he holds the five of diamonds. From Mawbey’s pocket projects a document, Surrey Commisssion, and a book, Burn Justice (Burn’s well-known justice of the Peace and Parish Officer, used by all acting J.P.s, not an exhortation to incendiarism as Evans supposes). Above his head is a picture of a pig feeding from a trough.

This image relates to a quarrel between Mawbey and his steward , a Mr.Wilkinson, whom he arrested for a balance of £30 alleged to be due. The steward brought an action and received £150 damages. Mawbey, a Southwark distiller, bred great quantitities of hogs, and is seldom mentioned without some allusion to this.