Mr. tV ether ell's Herds. i 7 1 



Mr. Thomas Booth, Sir Tatton Sykes, Captain Bar- 

 clay, and Mr. Wiley on his walls, it would be strange 

 if he did not sit by the hour in his easy chair, and tell 

 of old times and shorthorn doings when they were all 

 in the flesh. At times the gig comes for the Chief 

 Baron to go over and spend a few days at Killerby 

 and Warlaby. He presides there in great state at 

 those " high private trials" of shorthorns under tin; 

 trees in the home garth, and cites the Charity prece- 

 dents. Mr. John Outhwaite frequently assists, and 

 adopting a mode of practice quite unknown to the 

 Westminster law courts, that learned baron generally 

 backs his opinion from the bench for one, if not two, 

 new hats. On the knotty subject of the Leicester 

 yearling heifers, the Court, which never objects to 

 " liquor up" during the most weighty discussion, 

 divided two and two. 



" Great constitution" is Mr. Wetherell's leading 

 tenet, but " great size" never was ; and if he does 

 illustrate it, he goes to Colonel Cradock, who gloried 

 in it, and whose " Magnum Bonum was like the Great 

 Eastern." He always considers that Earl Spencer 

 began the bull trade, and made shorthorns, so to 

 speak, fashionable with the landlords. It was the 

 thing to go to Wiseton, more especially about the St. 

 Leger time, and if visitors liked a cow, they bargained 

 to give 50/. for the produce. The Earl crossed in till 

 he sacrificed constitution — they had thin fore-quarters 

 and no breasts ; and it was then that Mason, a very 

 clever first-rate judge, a hater of " fool's fat" and open 

 shoulders, and most decided about fore-quarters and 

 a good neck-vein, came to the Earl's aid. Whitaker 

 was a great keeper, and all for the milk-bag, and 

 Bates' mellow, light-fleshed sort grew less and less 

 robust — they would get fat, but they would not swell 

 and thicken like the Booths, which will stand any 

 amount of high pressure. Such is a mere fragment 

 of his confession of shorthorn faith. 



