passing, just to draw his feverish tongue
along the water of the horse-trough, but was
suddenly prevented by a violent blow of the
hard nob-end of a drover's stick across the
tip of his nose. Besides this, the wound he
has received from the goad, has laid bare the
skin on his back, and the sun is beginning
to act upon this, as well as the flies. By the
time the twenty miles are accomplished, he is
in no mood at all for the close jam in which
he is packed with a number of others in one
of the railway cattle-waggons. He bellows
aloud his pain and indignation; in which
sonorous eloquence he is joined by a bullock
at his side, who has lost half one horn by a
violent blow from a drover's stick, because he
had stopped to drink from a ditch at the
road-side, and persisted in getting a taste.
Our ox makes the acquaintance of this suffering
individual, and they recount their wrongs
to each other; but the idea of escape does not
occur to them; they rather resign themselves
to endure their destiny with stolidity, if
possible. Hunger, however, and worse than
this, thirst, causes sensations which are quite
beyond all patient endurance; and again they
uplift their great voices in anger and distress.

Our rather slow-minded ox has now arrived
at the opinion that some mischief is deliberately
intended him, and feels convinced that
something more is needed in this world than
passive submission. But what to do, he
knows not. His courage is high—only he
does not comprehend his position. Man, and
his doings, are a dreadful puzzle to him. His
one-horned friend fully coincides in all this.
Meantime, they are foaming with heat, and
thirst, and fever.

After a day's torture in this way, the animals
are got out of the waggon, by a thrashing
process which brings them pell-mell over each
other, many lauding on their knees, some head
foremost, and one or two falling prostrate
beneath the hoofs of the rest. The journey to
London then commences, the two friends
having been separated in the recent confusion.

With the dreadful scenes, among the live
cattle, which regularly take place in Smithfield
market, our readers have already been
made acquainted; it will now be our duty
to display before them several equally revolting,
and, though in a different way, still more
alarming, scenes and doings which occur in
this neighbourhood, and in other markets and
their vicinities.

Look at this ox, with dripping flanks,
half-covered with mud; a horrid wound across his
nose; the flesh laid bare in a rent on his back,
and festering from exposure to the sun and
the flies; his eye-balls rolling fiercely about,
and clots of foam dropping from his mouth!
Would any one believe that three days ago
he was a good-natured, healthy, honest-faced
ox? He is waiting to be sold. But who will
a decent price for a poor beast in this
unsound condition? He is waiting with a
cord round his neck, by which he is fastened
to a rail, and in his anguish he has drawn it
so tight that he is half-strangled; but he does
not care now. He can endure no more, he
thinks, because he is becoming insensible.
Presently, among several others brought to
the same rail, he recognises his friend with the
broken horn. They get side by side, and gasp
deeply their mutual torments. There are no
more loud lowings and bellowings; they
utter nothing but gasps and groans. Besides
the fractured horn, this bullock has since
received a thrust from a goad in his right
eye, by which the sight is not only destroyed,
but an effect produced which makes it requisite
to sell him at any price lie will bring.
This being agreed upon, he is led away to a
slaughter-house near at hand. Our poor ox
makes a strong effort to accompany his friend,
and with his eye-balls almost starting from his
head, tugs at the cord that holds him by the
throat, until it breaks. He then hastens after
the other, but is quickly intercepted by a couple
of drovers, who assail him with such fury, that
he turns about, and runs out of the market.

He is in too wretched and worn-out a
condition to run fast, so he merely staggers onward
amidst the blows, till suddenly a water-cart
happens to pass. The sight of the shining
drops of water seems to give the poor beast a
momentary energy. He runs staggering at it
head-foremost—his eyes half-shut,—falls with
his head against the after-part of the wheel as
the cart passes on,—and there lies lolling out
his tongue upon the moistened stones. He
makes no effort to rise. The drovers form a
circle round him, and rain blows all over him;
but the ox still lies with his tongue out upon
the cool wet stones. They then wrench his
tail round till they break it, and practise
other cruelties upon him; but all in vain.
There he lies.

While the drovers are pausing to wipe
their sanguinary and demoniac foreheads, and
recover their breath, the ox slowly, and as if
in a sort of delirium, raises himself on his legs,
and stands looking at the drovers with forlorn
vacancy. At this juncture the Market Inspector
joins the crowd, and after a brief glance at the
various sores and injuries, condemns the ox
as diseased—therefore unfit for sale. He is
accordingly led off, limping and stumbling to
the horse-slaughterer's in Sharp's Alley, duly
attended by the Inspector, to see that his order
of condemnation be carried into effect. They
are followed at a little distance by two fellows,
whose filthy habiliments show that they have
slept amidst horrors, who keep the diseased
ox in view with a sort of stealthy, wolfish
"eye to business."

The dying ox, with the drover, and the
Inspector, having slowly made their way
through the usual market difficulties, and
(to those who are not used to it) the equally
revolting horrors of the outskirts, finally get
into Sharp's Alley, and enter the terrific den
of the licensed horse-slaughter-house.

It is a, large knacker's yard, furnished