HISTOEY OF HEKEFORD CATTLfc 



355 



that into consideration. A sentence of three 

 months at hard labor is the lightest sentence I 

 can pass upon you/' 



It is well to note here that the Birmingham 

 Society did not sit tamely down and let the 

 exhibitor of this bull come back to their show 

 the next year and carry off the Sweepstake 

 prize; but commenced an action against Mr. 

 Hopkins, and put a stop to his further depre- 

 dations. 



The "Century" for February, 1881, discusses 

 the different methods now in vogue, by which 

 parties take that which does not belong to 

 them. They say: "He who takes by stealth what 

 belongs to another, is a thief. He who takes 

 by violence is a robber, and a robber is properly 

 supposed to disappear with other predatory 

 animals before the progress of civilization. 

 But this is a superficial judgment. The force 

 that unlawfully dispossesses men of their prop- 

 erty, passes through many transformations, but 

 no force is more persistent. Men are plundered 

 nowadays, plundered in America, more than 

 in England in the days of Eobin Hood. There 

 are men among us, beside whose robberies, 

 those of the brigands of Italy and Greece, and 

 the Bedouins of the desert are merely pleas- 

 antries. Of all the triumphs of invention, none 

 are more wonderful than that by which the 

 hard earned gains of millions are forcibly con- 

 veyed to the treasuries of the robber princes. 

 Ko business is more highly organized, more 

 stealthily pursued, more successfully managed 

 than the business of robbery. Yet under all 

 this elaboration of method, it is robbery; and 

 nothing worse or better. The peculiarity of 

 the modern method of robbery, is the employ- 

 ment by robbers of the state, as their enforced 

 agent and accomplice." 



The "Century" here opens and develops meth- 

 ods that are of interest to us in the discussion 

 of the live stock interests of America. 



We have called attention to the fact, that 

 about sixty years ago, the Shorthorn influence, 

 or, using the term of the "Century," "Shorthorn 

 robbers," used the English Society, termed the 

 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 

 as their enforced agent and accomplice, and as 

 an endorser for their schemes. Ten years later 

 they used the State of New York as their en- 

 forced agent and accomplice — or as an en- 

 dorser. Later they used the State of Illinois. 

 In November, 1880, standing under the author- 

 ity of the State of Illinois, as President of the 

 State Agricultural Society, the President per- 

 mitted these Shorthorn robbers to fraudu- 

 lently enter and exhibit their animals, and 

 under these fraudulent exhibits, take money 

 that did not belong to them, and statistics 



were published under the authority of the 

 State of Illinois, based upon fraudulent data. 

 The "Century" closes the article, from which 

 we have quoted, by saying: "What have 

 the people to say about these practices? They 

 do not appear as yet to have anything to say. 

 The robber princes are held in high esteem, 

 they go about to the colleges, some of them, 

 and doctors of law and doctors of divinity 

 grovel at their feet. If any Mordecai has re- 

 fused to bow down before them, his name has 

 not been reported. Men whose riches have 

 been increased by spoiling their neighbors, are 

 held up as shining examples for the imitation 

 of youth. So long as teachers silently endure 

 such iniquities, it is not to be expected that 

 the people will cry out against them. But the 

 day is sure to come when plain men will clearly 

 see that no man can get with clean hands in 

 an ordinary lifetime a hundred of million of 

 dollars. That such an enormous pile so sud- 

 denly collected must be loot, not profit. That 

 will be a day of reckoning indeed, for the rob- 

 bers and for the judges, and for legislators and 

 public teachers who 

 have been their ac- 

 complices. In the 

 meantime these 

 facts are to be 

 borne in mind, for 

 we have among us 

 a class of men, 

 who in their rapac- 

 ity, are bound on 

 enriching t h e ni - 

 selves by forcibly 

 seizing the proper- 

 ty of their neigh- 

 bors ; and they have 

 learned how to 

 use, for this pur- 

 pose, the organized 

 force of the state. Some means must be 

 found of putting a stop to them. Unless this 

 be done speedily the respect for law, on 

 which social order rests, will not long sur- 

 vive." The writer whom we here quote, had 

 in mind, when writing, that class of operations 

 known as star route frauds, but it is equally 

 applicable to the cattle ring, that organize their 

 interest under the authority of the state and un- 

 der this authority organize their society and 

 shows, select judges in their interest, and pub- 

 lish the awards rendered by such judges, as an 

 evidence of merit in their cattle, or standing be- 

 tween fraudulent entries and a proper investi- 

 gation in regard to them. There is a growing 

 demand throughout the country that these and 

 similar frauds shall be exposed. 



JOHN PRICE, 

 Of Court House, Heretorashire. 



