472 Report of the Stewards of Stock at the Worcester Show. 
Sheep and Pigs. 
Mr. Dent, the Steward for this department, reports as follows: — 
" Worcester may be fairly congratulated on having had not only 
a very numerous but a very excellent show of sheep. 1 expected 
to see the Shropshires, the Cotswolds, and the Oxford Downs in 
force so near their special localities ; but we had also both Lei- 
cester and Southdown classes very numerously filled, and of more 
than average excellence. And first, a few words as to public 
judging. Several rings, of good size and easy access, were pro- 
vided, into which it had been intended that every sheep should 
be brought to the Judges, who would thus have been quite 
separated from the public ; but the numerous entries in several 
classes — as, for instance, 53 Cotswold, 61 Shropshire, 44 Lei- 
cester, and 38 Oxford Down shearling rams — rendered this 
almost impossible, unless a very much greater staff of labourers 
were employed ; and in most cases the Judges preferred exa- 
mining the sheep in the pens, and then selecting certain animals 
for the ring. There were, however, owners of sheep whose 
eagerness could not be repressed, and it is quite impossible for 
the Steward of Stock and his assistant to be present with each set 
of Judges. Could the plan be pursued of bringing out every 
sheep into the ring, and keeping the Judges there until their 
decision has been made, I should like it better ; but this would 
require a very great staff of labourers, for there were at one time 
177 shearling sheep being judged by .four different sets of Judges. 
To bring the pigs into a ring would be impossible, for some of 
them could not even walk from their crates to their pens ; and 
their state of fatness, and consequent immobility, would have 
been ludicrous, were it not distressing to the animal and a positive 
injury to its breeding capacity. It was certainly absurd to see a 
man sitting beside his pig, and holding up its head to enable it 
to take its supper. 
" The more I saw of the Show, the more I felt that the 
Society should try to grapple with the shearing question. It was 
suggested to me that the Judges should have power to order any 
particular sheep, whose shape might puzzle them, to be shorn, in 
order to see whether the carcase c(5rrespondcd with the symmetri- 
cal outside ; but this would, I fear, very much lengthen the pro- 
ceedings. This year was the first in which I was admitted to 
the mysteries of the toilette of the sheep, and certainly no young 
lady going to a Drawing-Room could have more pains bestoAved 
on her than had some of the rams. The clipping and trim- 
ming during Friday and Saturday was incessant, and resulted 
in some charming models of symmetry. How far the carcase 
