However early you may come in the morning, you may be sure they are there before you. At twelve o’clock on Sunday night the Sunday is supposed to be over, and the poor beasts, who have been shut up ever since twelve on Saturday night, are released from their confinement. Now comes the difficulty and confusion. How can the beasts belonging to one man be prevented from mixing with those of another? How can they be got into proper order? I fear the answer must be chiefly by a system of terrorism and physical force. Those wonderfully sagacious brutes the drovers’ dogs know every animal, know where he is to go, know where he ought not to go, and take care that, somehow or other, the object aimed at by the defunct Administrative Reform Association should be achieved, and that the right one should be in the right place. Of a night the scene is something extraordinary. The lowing of oxen, the tremulous cries of the sheep, the barking of dogs, the rattling of sticks on the bodies and heads of the animals, the rough and ragged appearance of the men, the shouts of the drovers, and the flashing about of torches, present altogether a wild and terrific combination. But all this is over by daylight, when the buyers come upon the scene, and there is an appearance of order and cleanliness, a strong contrast to Smithfield, as your eye glances from one row to another of heads gathered from Northamptonshire, from Leicestershire, from Scotland, from Ireland, from the fertile plains of far-away Holstein, or the pastures of Spain, still more remote. The latter animals it seems almost a pity to slaughter; they have something of the appearance of the buffalo, minus his shaggy head of horrid hair; they are cream-coloured, and with their long horns must be a very pretty ornament for a gentleman’s park. Our foreign trade in cattle is growing very large. In the year 1857 there were imported into the United Kingdom, oxen and bulls, 53,277; cows, 12,371; calves, 27,315; sheep, 162,324; lambs, 14,883; swine, 10,678. The greater proportion come from Holland and Denmark, and are put upon the rail and at once sent off to London. There was a time when we were told this would be the ruin of the farmer; yet, according to the speech of Mr. Grey, a north country agriculturist, the other day, it appears that growing flesh is the most remunerative employment for the farmer at the present time; and in spite of all this foreign importation, we may observe that meat is high, and that Paterfamilias, blessed, as he is sure to be, with a small income and a large family, finds it difficult to make both ends meet. The returns of the cattle-markets tell us that the population of London consume annually 277,000 bullocks, 30,000 calves, 1,480,000 sheep, and 34,000 pigs. Mr. Hicks estimates the value of these at between seven and eight millions sterling. The buyers here are the larger class of dealers; the smaller