f a spectator. When a large lot is nearly alike in size
and appearance, they look best and most level on a flat piece of ground.
Very large fat oxen never look better than on ground on the same level
with the spectator. An ox, to look well, should hold his head on a line
with the body, with lively ears, clear eye, dewy nose, a well-licked
hide, and should stand firmly on the ground on all his feet. These are
all symptoms of high health and good condition. Whenever an ox shifts
his standing from one foot to another, he is _foot-sore_, and has been
driven far. Whenever his head hangs down and his eyes water, he feels
ill at ease inwardly. When his coat stares, he has been overheated some
time, and has got a subsequent _chill_. All these latter symptoms will
be much aggravated in cattle that have been fed in a barn.

Cattle are made to fast before being slaughtered. The time they should
stand depends upon their state on their arrival at the shambles. If they
have been driven a considerable distance in a proper manner, the bowels
will be in a tolerably empty state, so that twelve hours may suffice;
but if they are full and just off their food, twenty-four hours will be
required. Beasts that have been overdriven, or much struck with sticks,
or in any degree infuriated, should not be immediately slaughtered, but
allowed to stand on dry food, such as hay, until the symptoms disappear.
These precautions are absolutely necessary that the meat may be
preserved in the best state.

The mode of slaughtering cattle varies in different countries. In the
great slaughter-houses at Montmartre, in Paris, they are slaughtered by
bisecting the spinal cord of the cervical vertebrae; and this is
accomplished by the driving of a sharp-pointed chisel between the second
and third vertebrae, with a smart stroke of a mallet, while the animal is
standing, when it drops, and death or insensibility instantly ensues,
and the blood is let out immediately by opening the blood-vessels of the
neck. The plan adopted in England is, first to bring the ox down on his
knees, and place his under-jaw upon the ground by means of ropes
fastened to his head and passed through an iron ring in the floor of the
slaughterhouse. He is then stunned with a few blows from an iron axe
made for the purpose, on the forehead, the bone of which is usually
driven into the brain. The animal then falls upon his side, and the
blood is let out by the neck. Of the two modes, the Fren