Roast′ing-jack.
（Domestic.) An old-fashioned device for turning the spit on which meat was roasted before an open fire. It was driven by a dog inclosed within a tread-wheel from which a belt passed around a pulley on the end of the spit. The dogs employed for this purpose usually belonged to a peculiarly short-legged, long-bodied breed, termed turnspits. It is said that there was not unfrequently considerable competition as to which should take his place in the wheel when a joint was to be roasted, the animals well knowing that industry would receive its reward. In the onward march of improvement, this device disappeared before its younger rival, the smoke-jack, which ate nothing; though within a comparatively recent period it might still be occasionally met with in England. Its faithful minister, the turnspit dog, is now but rarely seen. The illustration is taken from the castle of St. Briard, on the borders of the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire, and forcibly suggests the days when the “roast beef of Old England” still maintained its time-honored supremacy over mutton and such small deer. [1956]
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| The turnspit at work. |
