Note 31 — The Devil's Oak:

is evidently traceable to Miss Tannakin Skinker, who was born in 1618; but it is astonishing how widely spread is the belief in "Pig faced Ladies." No doubt but there has been some foundation in fact for it, for I am credibly informed that not long since,31 a child, whose face bore a singular likeness to a pig, was born in the City of London Lying-in Hospital in the City Road—and not only survived its birth, but is in all probability still living. In 1815 a pig-faced lady, elegantly dressed, used to drive about London in her carriage; but whether people were being hoaxed by one wearing a mask is not known. George Morland painted a portrait of the "Wonderful Miss Atkinson Born in Ireland, has £20,000 fortune and is fed out of a Silver Trough," and Fairburn published an engraving of her. Miss Steevens, who founded Steeven's Hospital at Dublin, is also credited with being pig-faced; whilst pig-faced ladies used commonly to be shown at fairs. But these were fictitious, as a quarrel in a caravan at Plymouth, some years since, brought to light, when it was shown that her ladyship was a bear whose face and neck had been carefully shaved, whilst its head was adorned with a wig with ringlets and a cap with artificial flowers. The bear was securely fastened in a chair, and draped to imitate a fashionably-dressed lady.