X. THE BEAUTY OF CATTLE 



A VISIT to the Cattle Show at the Agricultural Hall 

 should reconcile the English mind to the Indian worship 

 of the cow. Considered as a gathering of the most 

 beautiful animals of their kind which the art of man 

 can aid Nature to produce, it has only one drawback 

 the excess of flesh which a * fat-stock ' show demands. 

 But the richness and colour of the cattle, and the noble 

 lines of heads, dark-eyed and massive-browed, with 

 curling locks upon their foreheads and shining crescent 

 horns, make a study of form and colour which the 

 most uninstructed sight-seer must admire. Our im- 

 pression of the show, from the point of view of the 

 animals' comfort or suffering, was, on the whole, favour- 

 able. The atmosphere was beautifully sweet and clean, 

 with a pleasant smell of hay and clover and clean straw 

 scents that must suggest to the cattle's mind visions 

 of a glorified rickyard. It is, perhaps, too hot for the 

 comfort of the fatter beasts, some of whom pant and 



show signs of malaise. But others were lying down 



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