3-070-968 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches at the Smithfield Club Cattle Show, 1881. 'The Proprietor, The Breeder, The Dealer, The Butcher, The Drover, The Drover's Man, the Drover's Boy, The Drover's Dog; "Look here, upon this picture - and on this"; Divided Attentions; One Man's meat - another Man's Poison; The First Day; The Last...The eighty-fourth yearly cattle show...has been held this week, at the Agricultural Hall, Islington. Our Comic Artist, having an eye rather for the human oddities, who may be discerned in every mixed gathering of country folk and Londoners, than for the finest specimens of British stock-breeding, sheep-breeding, and swine-breeding, or fattening for the Christmas market, has chosen subjects for his Sketches which do not much illustrate the progress of agricultural improvement. But they may afford some entertainment to disinterested readers, while they are by no means intended to cast ridicule upon any of the classes represented; the land-owner, the farmer, the dealer, the butcher, the drover, and the drover's man, or even the drover's dog. This year's Metropolitan Cattle Show has been a very good one, with 238 entries, thirty-one above last year's number, and with a higher average of merit than ever before'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.