This melancholy event came off last week, when prizes were distributed to the breeders of the very leanest stock—a brass band, the horns and ophicleides draperied with black crape, playing funeral airs at intervals. The results of free trade were never more shockingly conspicuous than in the shadowy forms of steers and oxen; while there was a pen of a dozen pigs, scarcely one of which was visible to the naked eye. We observed more than one benevolent lady weeping pearls over indefinite things that had vainly struggled to become porkers. There were sheep that were nothing but the merest bladebones, here and there covered with threads of worsted. The Queen and Prince Albert, with two of the little Princes, visited the spectacle, contemplating it with becoming gravity. The Prince carried away the prize for a bull that was only visible when placed under a glass of forty Opera power. Occasionally, an acute ear might detect sounds that a liberal mind might interpret as ghost-like bellowings—spectral bleatings—with now and then an asthmatic attempt at a grunt. The Duke of Wellington's battering-ram is not to be seen when looked at in front; but only from either side. It is said to have been fed upon old drum-heads, with occasionally the ribbons of a recruiting sergeant chopped and made into a warm mash. We ought, by the way, to have remarked that the Duke of Richmond attended, as President, in deep mourning; and bore in his face and manner the profoundest traces of unutterable woe. However, let us proceed to give the list of prizes, all of them so many triumphant proofs of the withering influence of Free-Trade.
OXEN OR STEERS.
The Duke of Rutland carried away the £30 prize for the thinnest steer. It had been fed on waste copies of Protectionist pamphlets with the tune of "The Roast Beef of Old England," played in A flat on a tin trumpet. Some idea may be entertained of the nicety with which the animal had been brought to the lowest point of life, when we state that five minutes after the noble Duke received the prize, the thing died; all the brass band braying "The Roast Beef of Old England" for half-an-hour, in the vain hope of reviving it. The beast was distributed among the Marylebone poor; all of them ordered to appear in spectacles to see, if possible, their proper quantities.
LONG-WOOLED SHEEP.
The Duke of Atholl bore off the first prize of £20, for an extraordinary specimen of Highland sheep, that both puzzled and delighted the judges. The sheep had been reared upon Highland thistles, according to the Duke's well-known hospitality; and these thistles so judiciously served, that they had taken the place of the wool, growing through the animal's sides, and coating them all over with their brushy points. The Rev. Mr. Bennett was present, and was much delighted with his wool of thistles; he is to be presented with a comforter—the thing will be very popular by Christmas, to be called the Atholl Bosom Friend—woven from the fleece. The web, in place of the vulgar linen shirt, is expected to become very general with the ladies and gentlemen who feed upon the honey hived at St. Barnabas.
PIGS.
Colonel Sibthorp took the prize for the Pig of Lead; so small a pig, that it might creep down the tube of a Mordan's pencil. Mr. Disraeli sent the shadow of a sow; one of his practical epigrams, showing he had ceased to have even a real squeak for Protection; he also sent a porker that, from its largeness of size—where smallness was the object—was deemed hopeless of any reward. However, Mr. Disraeli carefully removing a muzzle from the pig's snout, the animal collapsed flat as a crush-hat. The fact is, Mr. Disraeli had, as he afterward averred, seemingly fattened the hog upon a pair of bellows. There are, we have heard, pigs that see the wind; whether Mr. Disraeli's pig is of that sort, the eloquent Protectionist said not. He, however, took a second prize; and next year promises to exhibit a whole litter of the smallest pigs in the world, suckled upon vials of aquafortis.
COWS.
The leap of the Cow that jumped over the Moon was exhibited by the Duke of Richmond. This Cow had been fed on the printer's ink from the Standard newspaper, which sufficiently accounts for the daring altitude of its flight. The Duke was proffered the gold medal, but resolutely refused any such vanity.
In conclusion, we are happy to say that the Exhibition was well attended. The thousands of our countrymen who witnessed the wretched condition of the cattle must have carried away with them the profound conviction, that the days of Free Trade are numbered; and that a speedy return to Protection is called for by the interests of man and brute—from Dukes to steers, from Parliament men to pigs.