Freedom Ends For One Ham On The Lam Other Hog Continues To Elude Massive Search In Britain

One of two desperadoes on the run after facing execution was captured Thursday night, to the dismay of people throughout England who had been cheering them on, hoping they would make their escape.

The pair, termed the Tamworth Two by the British press, were being taken a week ago on the back of a trailer truck to their place of execution. When the tailgate was lowered, they saw their chance and made a break for it.

They crawled under a fence, raced across a field, plunged into the cold waters of the River Ingleburn and swam across. Their pursuers gave up at that point, and the escapees kept running.

They are ginger-colored Tamworth boar pigs, who were being delivered to a slaughterhouse at Malmesbury, 75 miles west of London, when they made their bid for freedom. The town’s main pub is called the Whole Hog.

A Royal Society for the Protection of Animals officer cornered one of the pigs Thursday night in a garden and captured it. There was no sighting of its companion.

Earlier, Joan Richardson, an English literature professor, said local people have named the fugitives Fred and Ginger “because they had to have performed some pretty fancy footwork to have escaped the butcher’s knife.”

A tabloid newspaper christened them “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Pig.”

The Tamworth is one of the oldest breeds of pig and considered by animal behaviorists to be one of the most intelligent. They were once prized for their tasty bacon, but when new breeds came along that were cheaper to raise and produced more bacon, the Tamworths declined and they now are few in number.

Since the escape was made public, dozens of people have come forward offering the pigs homes and offering to buy their freedom. But Arnold Dijulio, a Wiltshire County road sweeper who is their owner, has said he isn’t interested. He bred them for slaughter and said he would not discuss the matter further.

Patricia Hodson of the Born Free Foundation in Surrey, which rescues wild animals, said: “They are beautiful animals and we would like to give them a good home. They should be given another chance after being clever enough to run away.”

Steve Connor of the Vegetarian Society said his organization hoped 1998 would be a year of mass revolt by animals destined for slaughter. “Animals really aren’t that keen on the idea of ending up as dinner.”

The Daily Express promised to give the pigs a comfortable life in an animal sanctuary if it can recover them. “They are too good to eat and much too brave to die,” it said.

Each pig weighs about 110 pounds, and they were hiding for several days in a 10-foot-high bramble and blackthorn thicket covering a half acre on the outskirts of Malmesbury. They were believed to be surviving mainly on apples that have fallen from an old tree, and on roots.

Carl Sadler, who owns the thicket, said: “They are welcome to stay here as long as they want. It’s the perfect place for pigs and I’d be happy for them to root out some of this undergrowth.”

A local slaughterman, Jerry Newman, spotted one of the pigs this week, but the pig took off as soon as it saw him. “You can’t be sentimental in this business, but I say good luck to them,” Newman told the Times of London.

He said he has had calls from people all over the country, including one from a girls’ boarding school in London, who want the pigs. The callers would be welcome to them, he said, if he owned them.

Nearly 100 reporters converged on Malmesbury, some from the tabloid newspapers offering hundreds of dollars to bounty hunters who might succeed in capturing the pigs, and television crews searched for them from helicopters.

But journalistic sleuthing failed, and it took the RSPCA officer to find one of the escapees.