318 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



to describe. A large proportion of the stock arrive in the 

 neighborhood of London either on Saturday or early on Sunday, 

 where they are fed in the fields, or the extensive lairs prepared 

 for their reception. These lairs, especially Laycock s at Isling 

 ton, are well worth a visit, being composed of open yards and 

 most extensive sheds, covering fourteen acres of ground, fur 

 nished with watering troughs and mangers, and divided into 

 different compartments. Here the farmer or drover is supplied 

 with hay or straw for his stock, not by the day or night, but by 

 the truss, the hay which is sold in London being always put up 

 and tied in bundles of 56 pounds each certainly an excellent 

 arrangement, which, while it prevents all temptations to waste, 

 requires a purchaser to pay only for that which he has. The 

 cattle here get a little rest and refreshment in these stalls after 

 their long journeys ; and here they are visited by the salesmen 

 preparatory to their appearance in the market on Monday. It 

 would not be surprising, likewise, and not altogether unlike 

 some occurrences on the other side of the water, if some pur 

 chasers, with an acquisitiveness not disturbed by religious 

 scruples, should occasionally make their way there and an 

 ticipate the bargains of the ensuing day.* About midnight the 

 different detachments, almost treading upon the heels of each 

 other, begin to make their way to the place of rendezvous 

 through the winding streets of this wilderness of houses, and 

 enter the great market-place by different and opposite avenues, 

 and, like hostile parties, often meet each other in the very centre. 

 Then comes the conflict : the driving of so many thousand of 

 sheep into their several pens ; the assorting and tying up, or arran 

 ging, so many thousand of cattle, driven into a state of terror and 

 frenzy by the men and dogs ; the struggles of the different owners 

 or drovers to keep their own and prevent their intermingling 

 with others j the occasional leaping the barriers, and the escape 

 of some straggler, who is to be brought back by violence ; the 

 sounds of the heavy blows over the heads, and horns, and sides, 

 of the poor crazed animals ; the shrieks of the men : the yelling 

 and barking of hundreds of dogs, who look after the sheep and 



* I will say, hoAvever, by the way, and as an act of simple justice, that London, 

 as well as every other part of England which I have visited, is remarkable for its 

 sober and decorous observance of the Lord s Dav. 



