300 



New Bedford, Fall River, Providence, R. I. and other con- 

 siderable towns. The number of head of cattle, of all descrip- 

 tions, brought here frequently exceeds eight thousand on a mar- 

 ket-day. Five thousand sheep have sometimes been driven there 

 in a sitigle day. The cattle are often sold on the hoof — which is, 

 on many accounts, a preferable mode for both parties, as it leaves 

 no room for fraud or suspicion of fraud in regard to their weight. 

 It is very desirable that the practice of selling on the hoof 

 should become more common. Experienced judges " lay " the 

 weight with surprising accuracy. The live weight affords an 

 uncertain rule, as the weight of an animal is so materially af- 

 fected by a full or an empty stomach. Mathematical rules are 

 given, and tables for determining the live weight of animals 

 have been framed abroad, which are said to give results very 

 nearly exact, but they have not been introduced here.* 



Great impositions are often practised in the selling of swine 

 by live weight. They are supplied abundantly with salt and 

 filled to repletion with corn before the sale. The buyer in this 

 case does not suffer from an over weight only, but from the 

 injury done to the hogs, who do not recover from the effects of 

 such excesses for a long time, and in many cases have been in- 

 curably injured ; in some instances have died within a few days 

 in the hands of the purchaser. We call ourselves a christian 

 community ! In Turkey such rascalities would speedily give 

 the villain an opportunity of carrying his head under his arm. 

 In times of a quick market, droves of cattle and sheep are 

 often waylaid a day's or more journey from the market, and 

 sales are effected without their reaching Brighton. Large 

 numbers of the droves reach on Saturday night the resting 

 places within such a drive of the market as is easily accom- 

 plished on Monday morning. At these places the Lord's day is 

 loo frequently desecrated by these premature negotiations; and 

 the gathering of the droves towards the market, proves many 

 times a troublesome annoyance to the sober part of the com- 

 munity in the vicinity of the great avenues. On these ac- 

 counts, it has been much desired that the market-day might be 



* Appendix J. 



