Report on the Exhibition of Live-Stock at Derby. 593 
aro waniag has more elaborate preparation bestoweJ upon her by her maid than 
have these show shoep by their careful shepherds; and I wish the abdity 
and ingenuity which these good fellows display in colouring and trimming 
were exerted in a better cause. Tiie shepherds are always a ple.vsant cheery 
class, and it was a great pleasure to me to meet old faces with whom I 
made actinaiutance in] 1863, and to see amongst the new ones one beginning 
at as early an age as eiglit to look after a prize sheep. I am a warm advocate 
for a good education for all children, our own as well as the shepherds', and 
that thuy should learn what is useful ; but a boy will be far more likely to 
become a valuable servant if he gets out with his father to the byre or the 
fold as soon as he has got a good mastery of the elenmnts of general educa- 
tion, than he would be if he were kept at school till thirteen or fourteen, 
studying some of the wonderful descriptions which compilers of school-books 
give of our domestic animals. We must impress on our labourers the neces- 
sity of sending their children early and regularly to school, and so b nng able 
to teach them the thin;j;s of common life at eleven or twelve years of age, and 
allow them to get that knowledge and love of animals which can only be 
acquired by being constantly amongst them. 
My impression from our Show is certainly that the dark-faced sheep are 
gaining ground, and that the Leicester and Lincoln are not making the same 
progress. One word of cordial thanks to all the servants in the department, 
and to my brother Stewards for their kindness and courtesy throughout the 
Show. 
John Dent Dent. 
PIGS. 
The Steward of Pigs is the subject of a good deal of chaff 
during his stewardship from his brethren, whose lots are cast 
in more agreeable places, and it is not at all surprising that when 
the Steward of this interesting department was asked to furnish 
information, and to give details concerning it, he replied that 
he had not studied the subject sufficiently, on account of the heat 
and the odours. 
Besides the odours, not exactly of " Araby the blest," it is 
painful to see the prostrate masses of fat " grunting and sweating 
under a weary life " in the heat, and to reflect upon the tortures 
of many which have had to travel and would have to travel, it 
may be, hundreds of miles, pent within the narrow confines of a 
crate. These are indeed helpless victims of overstrained selec- 
tion, of an 2<wnatural selection, that has turned them into mere 
fat-making machines, with about as much consciousness of 
existence as jelly-fishes. Seriously speaking, this has come to 
such a pass, that it is time that a check should be put to the 
unlimited exhibition of animals which plainly cannot be in a 
fit state for breeding purposes. 
In point of numbers and quality, the show of pigs was quite 
up to the average, as the accompanying Table (VII., p. 594) 
illustrates. Though the amount of prize-money given at Derby 
was 37/. less than the average of the last four years, the number 
of pigs entered-^there was only one short of the average number 
