Pigs in the precinct?

[Miller, Jerry]

A colleague asked me about the origin(s) of "pig" as a derisive term for
police as used so frequently in the '60s. The only reference I could find
dated it to 1848 but gave no explanation of how it came to be applied to the
police, which is what he was most curious about. Anybody here know of any
documented explanation, or is it just the obvious appropriation of the most
disgusting of barnyard animals (in other words, as a Marx brother would have
asked, "Why not a duck?")?

Jerry Miller
millerj at franklincoll.edu <mailto:millerj at franklincoll.edu>