r forty lambs intended for the Easter
markets, and had, with great difficulty and the sacrifice of grass
which should have stood for hay, managed to keep them on, scarcely
knowing what to do with them. But the sudden demand arose just in
time, and I sent them to the Alcester auction sale, where buyers from
Birmingham and the neighbourhood attend in large numbers. A capital
sale resulted, the price going as high as 60s., in those days a big
figure for lambs about four months old. I was so pleased with the
result and my deliverance from the dilemma, that, passing through the
town on my way home, and spying an old Worcester china cup and saucer,
and a bowl oL the same, all with the rare square mark, I invested some
of my plunder in what time has proved an excellent speculation, and my
cabinet is still decorated with these mementoes, which I never see
without calling to mind the story of the lamb edict and its result.

During the Great War some controlling wiseacre evolved precisely the
same scheme for bringing about an imaginary increase in the supply of
mutton, by prohibiting the slaughter of any lambs until June. The
Dorset breeders, who buy in ewes at high prices for the special
production of early lamb--the lambs of this breed are born in October
and November--were more particularly affected, and the absurdity of
the prohibition having been later represented to the authorities, the
order was withdrawn, though not before great loss and difficulty were
inflicted upon the unfortunate producers. It goes to prove the
necessity of the administration of such matters by competent men, and
how easily apparently sound theory in inexperienced hands may conflict
with economical practice.

Of late years the competition of the importations of New Zealand lamb
has reduced the price of English lamb to an unremunerative level. This
thin dry stuff bears about the same resemblance to real fat home-grown
lamb, as do the proverbial chalk and cheese to each other; but it is
good enough for the restaurants and eating-houses; and the consumer
who lacks the critical faculty of the connoisseur in such matters,
devours his "Canterbury" lamb, well disguised with mint sauce, in
sublime ignorance, and, apparently, without missing the succulence of
the real article--convinced as he is that it was produced in the
neighbourhood of the cathedral city of the same name, and unaware of
the existence of such a place as Canterbury in New Zealand, or that