the animal world.  It is the grandest structure ever erected for the exhibition of cattle, sheep, swine, poultry, etc.  I will essay no description of it here, but it will carry through long generations the name and memory of Jonas Webb of Babraham.  He was chairman of the company that built the superb edifice; also president of the Nitro-phosphate or Blood-manure Company, a fertilizer in which he had the greatest confidence, and which he used in great quantities upon the large farm he cultivated, containing over 2,000 acres.

At the age of nearly sixty-six, Mr. Webb found that his health would no longer stand the strain of the toil, care, and anxiety requisite to keep up the Babraham flock to the high standard of perfection which it had attained.  So, after nearly forty years of devotion to this great occupation of his life, he concluded to retire from it altogether, dispersing his sheep and cattle as widely as purchasers might be found.  This breaking-up took place at Babraham on the 10th of July, 1862.  Then and there the long series of annual re-unions terminated for ever.  The occasion had a mournful interest to many who had attended those meetings from year to year.  It seemed like the voluntary and unexpected abdication of an Alexander, still able to add to his conquests and trophies.  All present felt this; and several tried to express it at the old table now spread for the last time for such guests.  But his inherent and invincible modesty waived aside or intercepted the compliments that came from so many lips.  With a kind of ingenious delicacy, which one of the finest of human sentiments could only inspire, he contrived to divert attention or reference to himself and his life’s labors.  But he could not make the company forget them, even if he gently checked allusion to them.

The company on this interesting occasion was very large, about 1,000 persons having sat down to the collation.  Not only were the principal nobility and gentry of Great Britain interested in agricultural pursuits present in large number, but the representatives of nearly every other country in Christendom.  Several gentlemen from the United States were among the purchasers.  The total number of sheep sold was 969, which fetched under the hammer the great aggregate of 10,926 pounds, or more than $54,000.  The most splendid ram in the flock went to the United States, being knocked down to Mr. J. C. Taylor, of Holmdale, New Jersey; who is doing so much to Americanise the Southdowns.  Others went to the Canadas, Australia, South America, and to nearly every country in continental Europe.