at beast! A
feeder approaches a well filled short-horn--he touches it here--he
pinches it there--he declares it to have many good _points_ about it;
but pronounces the existence of defects, where the uninitiated see
only beauties. The points of a fat ox, how mysterious they are, how
difficult to make out! The five points of Arminianism, our old vicar
used to say, were nothing to them. But here, too, Mr. Stephens is at
home. Listen to his simple explanation of the whole:

"The first point usually _handled_ is the end of the rump at the
tail-head, although any fat here is very obvious, and sometimes
attains to an enormous size, amounting even to deformity. The
hook-bone gets a touch, and when well covered, is right.... To the
hand, or rather to the points of the fingers of the right hand, when
laid upon the ribs, the flesh should feel soft and thick and the
form be round when all is right, but if the ribs are flat the flesh
will feel hard and thin from want of fat. The skin, too, on a rounded
rib, will feel soft and mobile, the hair deep and mossy, both
indicative of a kindly disposition to lay on flesh. The hand then
grasps the flank, and finds it thick, when the existence of internal
tallow is indicated.... The palm of the hand laid along the line of
the back will point out any objectionable hard piece on it, but if
all is soft and pleasant, then the shoulder-top is good. A
hollowness behind the shoulder is a very common occurrence; but when
it is filled up with a layer of fat, the flesh of all the
fore-quarter is thereby rendered very much more valuable. You would
scarcely believe that such a difference could exist in the flesh
between a lean and a fat shoulder. A high narrow shoulder is
frequently attended with a ridged back-bone, and lowset narrow hooks,
a form which gets the appropriate name of _razor-back_, with which
will always be found a deficiency of flesh in all the upper part of
the animal, where the best flesh always is. If the shoulder-point is
covered, and feels soft like the point of the hook-bone, it is good,
and indicates a well filled neck-vein, which runs from that point to
the side of the head. The shoulder-point, however, is often bare and
prominent. When the neck-vein is so firmly filled up as not to
permit the points of the fingers inside of the shoulder-point, this
indicates a well tallowed animal; as also does the filling up
between the brisket and inside of the fore legs, as well as a full,
p