The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-10-10 00:00:00

BY EXPRESS ci ELECTRIC TELEa.RAPR.

(FROM OUR OWN REPORTER.)
. MARK-LANE, MONDAY, Oaroass 9.

Arrival. of English wheat very moderate; trade
quiet. For good and fine qualities last Monday's prices
were steedily supported. Damp wheats were rather
lower. A good Ripply ef foreign wheat; trade sluggish,
at stationary prime. A moderate supply a barley;
trade quiet, at lab sates. Malt steady. Oats dull and
rather lower. Deans and peas unaltered. flour quiet,
at last *anises prices.

METROPI)L/TAN CATTLE MARKET, OcronEn 9.
A heavy supply of foreign stock, in but very
middlinfoonditions. Trade dull, at last week's decline.
From our ow& gm* districts the arrivals were very
moderabs for the aisle of year, and their weight and
quality were by no means first-rate. The beef trade
was in a sluggish state; nevertheless, prices were un-
altered frees Monday last. The best Soots and crosses
realised 6s. to ss. 2d. per 81b. There was a fair
show of beasts from Ireland; but the supply from
f3ootland was unusually smalL A tolerably good
supply of sheep. Trade was quiet, at late currencies.
Prime Downs and half-breds sold at 6e. to 6s. 4d.,
in some instances at 61. 6d. per 81b. A fair supply
of calves. Demand somewhat heavy, and late rates
were not freely supported. Priem ranged from 4s. 4d.
to Es. 4d. per 81b. Unusually high quotations were
demanded for pigs. Neat small porkers were held at ss.
6d. to G.. 1011, essd leer pigs at 4s. 4d. to 15e. 4d. per
816. Tllbrporkithislig ilErever, was very inaotive.
9.

lof grain. New wheat again showed in improved con
dition, and for good parcels of new as well as of old
their was a brisk demand, at prices quite Is. the qr. in
advance of those of last week. Sersondary parcels were
not hither, and not much in demand. Quotations
were:—Beet, 48e to 51s ; others, 40s. upwards. The
sales at Basingstoke this week were not as heavy as they
recently have been, being only 869 qrs., and the
average price fell to 425. 7d., on arsonist of the large
quantity of inferior grain. Andover market was firm,
wheat heingquoted 48.. to 61s. for best, but new made
only 45a. The Dorset average was about 44e. The
attendance of maDsters here to-day ass numerous,
and their was a good demand for malting barley, which
again advanced lc the qr., 40s. being obtaioed for the
best parcels. General quotations were 34a. to 40e.
Grinding met only a alow sale, prices being 249. to 28.1.
For spring corn there is a fair consumptive demand at
fully recent prices Oats make 225. to 305.; bean, 425.
to 50a. peas 365. to 425. Flour firm at 32a. te 375. The
weather shows signs of alteration.

THE CATTLII TRAM!.

Wmvesms.-The transactions in cattle in this district
are almost entirely confined to sales made on the farms
and at auction sales. Beef is in steady demand at very
full prices, anything good making 12s. 6d., 138., and
even 13e. 6d. the *sore. Dairy and other stooks do not
meet just now with the ready sale and high prices which
they recently did, on account of the scarcity of keep,
and, more especially on oar high lands, of water. This
part of the trade will in all probability soon improve.
The sheep fairs during the past ten
.days have been
numerous, At Foundbury, Dorsetehire, prices fell 2s.
to Sc. per bead, in consequent* of short keep. Best
horned ewes made 545. to 595. ; best Downs, 555. to 60s.
Mutton sold as follows :-Down *ethers, Mn, to 635. &I.;
ewes, s&c. to 635. ; lambs, 455. to 451.. it DoMnton
prices fell 28. to 3., and at Garnborough Ca-tie them
was a still further reduction, At Stoford trade was
dull, but prices did not stiffer a further fall. Mutton
made Bd. to 9d. per lb. Pigs are in better supply gene-
rally, showing that the disease is increasing; baron pigs
are quoted lls. 6d. to 125., and porkers 12s. to 1. 6d.
BATH-There was an average supply at to-day's
market, and prices may be quoted about ad, per stone
lower than those of last week.
Noswil hoe was a considerable supply of store
cattle on offer here to-day, but there appears to be great
distrust on the part of timers, and sales were effected
with such &Amity that one of the principal cat,le
dealers in the market has resolved to suspend his opera-
tions for a month. Some of the lots purchased at the
market during the last three we ka have, unfortunately,
produced fresh eases of disease in the districts into
which they have been conveyed; hence the feeling of
I renewed uneasiness which checked business to-day. On
the whole, the prices of store cattle must be said to
have displayed to-day a decidedly downward tendency.
Fat beasts, 9a. to 9s. 6d., and prime lots 10s. per 141 b.
The show of sheep was fair, MINI prices were in a droop-
ing state also in this department of the market, being
reduced in many cases is. to 2.5. per bead. Fat sheep,
10s. to IDa 84. per 141 b. Store pigs, 28s. to 305., said
half fat, 355. to 388. per head; fat pork, Sc. 6d. to 9s.
per 141 b.

PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS.

October 6, at Chubb's Almshouse, Dorchester, Martha
Bagg, in her 73rd year. brotherly or unchetitable feelings amongst
September 20, at Powerstook, Mr. Henry Wallbridge, their members. At the same time we are,
yeoman, aged 79 years.
September 30, aStslls House, Chiokerell, whither he times
,
had to admit, that there has, at ,
had gone in search of b.-.lth, Mr. William White, of
the Royal Library, Weymouth, aged 42. attached a certain stigma to false masonry
October 4, at 3, Wolla,ton-terraoe, Dorchester, Emily and that in Continental States it may be true
Mary, youngest daughter of Thomaa W. and Elizabeth
A. Pearce, aged 5 years and 9 months. that some obloquy has also affected Free-
October 6, at Fordingbr.the' Mr. Stephen Curtis, masonry for the deeds that may have been
many years High Bailiff of the County Court, aged 84
years. done in its name. Still, were it not that the
- - - - -

DORSET COUNTY EXPRESS

Pope, being no mason i can know nothing of
what he is denouncing (as the initiated must
feel satisfied), it seems not a little ludicrous
to find him--not indeed the first—but we
I shall rather say the last—to fulminate the
thunders of the Vatican,against an institution,
without which the church fabrics of the
middle ages would never have reared their
glorious forms, or gladdened our eyes with
the vestiges of that constructive genius,
which made Ruskin to exclaim, that men had
built like rats and mice since the 11th and
12th centuries. Had the Pope of Rome in
any degree respected his own traditions and
those of his order, he never could have been
guilty of confounding a body of nien to whom
the church it-elf owes so much, with those
paltry Irish rebels, who are the very spawn
and vomit of the more degraded of his Irish
priesthood, and their spurious teachings.
Il.—The secret of the Cattle Plague will
out at last. Two successive and excep-
tional seasons of drought would appear to
have affected this moist island "set in the
silver sea," as it has almost never been
affected before. The very wild creatures of
nature, With no artificial feeding to increase
their susceptibilities, we next learn with dis-
may, are dying by hundreds, possibly by
thousand., in their covers. We have always
known that wild game was subject to wild
disorders. How it is with hares we are un-
certain; but scarcely one rabbit is there out
of twelve but is decidedly consumptive. We
know this from the frequency with which
physiologists experimenting on these creatures
find their lungs either far gone, or covered
with pustules. Pheasants and partridges
carefully hatched by zealous keepers, and fed
like deer in the deer-barn of a grand
demesne, with the best of everthing, till the
great battue, When every head of feathered
game is alleged to cost the game preserver
about a guinea, are indeed as much exempt
from the diseases of wild fowl as the poultry,
whose flesh is every whit as good for the
table. But a country contemporary, the Wor-
HeOtilot has, through its lo4al corres,
pondents, something so dreadful to state res-
pecting hares and rabbits, that we have little
difficulty in identifying the existing mortality
amongst these creatures with the Cattle
I Plague itself, or attributing it at least to a
kindred, if not to a common cause. Mr.
Furnivall, a surgeon of Worcester, writing on
Thursday, says

DORCHESTER. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1865.

Since Saturday I have had several hares and rabbits
submitted to my notice, for the purpose of stating an
opinion as to the disease causing their death. Their ex-
ternal appearance consists in the major portion of their
bodies being denuded .of fur, with sores .or ulcers in
various parts of the Salmi end the bofies amidst protru-
ding through the same. The pot! ntoOtem examinations
conducted exhibit the livers slightly enlarged and the
biliary duets surcharged with purulent matter, in which
float black-coloured worms, the gland itself being of a
darker hue than natural. The alimentary canal is in
most cases studded with calcareous spota (analogous to
the dry rot in sheen) in the peritoneal surface, though
the inner lining menibrane pregente bit a alight indica-
tion of irritation to account for the diarrhdia, which
has been noticed to precede their dissolution. lam of
opinion that the malady is entirely caused by the dry
seaaon we have experienord, coupled with the I:lei:miler
botanical aspect of different grasses-and roots On which
these little animals feed at the present tifde, as Com-
pared with an ordinary season.

To this Mr. E. Donley, a game keeper,
adds the following corroboration:

"After 30 years' experience i am at • Ws to know
I the reason, and Revel. did I know aci niany die ,as there
has this last month. I have this morning with one of
' my men picked up 54 out of one ditch which mast have
L died since Thursday morning, and 250 I had seen
before, most within the last mouth. I always used to
see some in very wet weather in the autumn, on low
wet land, but never witnessed such a mortality as this.
I have opened several: the livers are not large and full
I of sloughing and Matter. as they are with the rot, but
. they are blank and pariflech The honeft protrudh
' almost through the skin, in the same wages thoSe which
; you say you have seen, and they seem to moue very
mach. You are welcome to make use of this as you
think proper. My opinion is that the disease arises
from the drought of the two last seasons. I had a
neighbouring keeper' Mr. Giles, of Strensham Manor,
at my house to-day to ask the reason the hares were
dying so. He says he has picked up over a hundred
within the last three menthe,"
,
Thus it would appear as if no four-footed
creature were exempt from the epidemic. Mr.
Furnivall in a passage which we have excised
from his letter alludes to the appearance of the
lung-disease, "pleurb-pneumonia,"amongst sheep.
But the alattit treated iii the weittetti part of
Wilts by the spread of disease amongat a dock
apparently affected with Cattle Plague last week
reached a climax. A meeting for the adoption
of repressive measures was held last Tuesday at
Marlborough. Mr. Henry Tarrant had bought
69 sheep at Kingsdown fair on 99th September,
and afterwards other 40, and employed his own
man to drive them home. At Mr. Austin's farm,
Chippenham, where they rested for the night of
Thursday, one lamb scoured and seemed rather
stiff but he did tot observe anything the matter
with the rest. They left the place at 4 a.m. on
Friday, and after stopping three hours by the
way at Cherwall, tirh. reached home at 10
O'clock at nightt Idri Wale, the itendor or the
60 sheep, had Previously left one sheep however
at Chippenham and it had died on the night of
Kingsdown fair. tin the Mdnday aucdeeding the
fair a lamb died at Mr. Tarrant's ; two more on
Wednesday; three more on Thursday; eight
more on Friday; and 14 on Saturday. On the
Thursday morning Mr. Tarrant in Vain effected
the separation of the 'Welt that had dotepoged
the ao from the 69; for on Friday 40 in al
evinced symptoms of disease and. 9 have since
died ; 60 out of the two lots were left alive, and
of these only 20 were recovering when the meet-
ing was held. The meeting however resolved
upon the immediate destruction of the whole by
agreeing to the pilithase of tlitm at k 1 per head
or about two-thirds of the price, and in accor-
dance with theirresolutions a number of labourers
armed with picks and spades proceeded at once
to Mildenhall and effected the work of slittighter.
Tinder the Surveillance of a police superintendent
the carcasses of the sheep were buried in lilac
five feet under ground, and the outer-clothing
of the men with their hurdles and implements
consigned to the fire. What is to be the end
of destructive measures like these, who can
possibly tell? The advice which we ventured to
urge in the beginning appears to be that which
obtains most general concurrence in the end.
Mutual insurance against mutual danger, with
an area large enough to render insurance
possible, and a subscription liberal enough to
supplement it where it is not possible will
mitigate, if not meet, the terrible visitation with
which Providence has qeen fit to afflict U. But
some of the papers say, the agriculturists have
been too tardy, they cannot, and will not rush
to the rescue, and the general public will do
nothing to help them. We know the public
better; and already the project lias been
breathed, on which the problem may be I
out: Sir J. Kay Shuttleworth or any
actuary may indeed be well able to show
the Cattle Plague sets ordinary insurance
lations at defiance. The more need then
those who have po cattle to insure should
ia honorary insurers, undertake to
proportioned to their -mew
IQ ye% the QOM indo vu

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