The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-12 00:00:00

NAVAL AND MILITARY INTELLIGENCE.

The European and American Steam Navigation
Company's steamer Jason, Capt. J. Baker, having
been taken up by the East India Company for the
conveyance of reinforcements to India, to the num-
ber of 1,150 officers and men of all ranks, has been
inspected at Gravesend by Col. Eden, the com-
mandant of Chatham garrison, accompanied by the
officers of his staff. The steamer being now ready
to receive the troops on board, the following offi-
cers and reinforcements will leave the Indian depots
at Chatham, and embark this day at Custotr-house
Quay, Gravesend :—Ensign R. Y. Stokes, and 10
men of the Bth (The King's); Lieut. G. C. Bartho-
lomew and 20 non-coramissioned offic, rs and men of
the 10th Foot ; 35 men of all ranks of the 10th Re-
giment ; 27 rank and file of the 20th Regt. ; 32 non-
commissioned officers and privates of the 23d Fusi-
liers ; Ensign J. C. Thomas and 33 men of all ranks
of the 24th Regt. ; 16 men of the 29th Regt. ; 8
men of the 32d Regt. ; 22 rank and file of the 35th
(Royal Sussex); Capt. R. H. Gordon, 42d Royal
Highlander?, and 46 men of all ranks of that corps;
31 men of the 53d Regt. ; 11 men of the 64th Refit.;
30 nen-commissioned officers and men of the 70th
Regt. ; Captain F. W. Foster and 14 men of the
78th Highlanders ; Lieut. W. B. Robertson, 79th
Highlanders, and 24 men of that corps ; 10 privates
of the 82d. Regt. ; Ensign H. S. Jones and 10 men
of the 84th Regt. ; 15 men of the 90th Light Infan.
try; and 26 men of all ranks of the 93d Highlanders.
The following reinforcements belonging to the In-
dian depot battalion at Colchester are also ordered
to embark in the Jason:—Lieut. E. R. Simmons
and 135 non-commissioned officers and men of the
Sri Fusiliers, Ist battalion ; Lt. A. Watson, 34th
Regt., together with 25 men of that corps ; 14 men
of the 37th Regt. ; 40 non-commissioned officers
and men of the 38th Regiment ; 10 men of the
54th Regiment ; 65 non-commissioned officers and
men of the 88th (Connaught Rangers) ; Lieutenant
Robert Kyle Little and 45 men of all ranks of
the 97th (Earl of Ulster's) Regiment ; Ensign P. L.
C. Phillips and 105 non-commissioned officers and
men of the 21 battalion Rifle Brigade ; and 50
men of all ranks of the 3d battalion Rifle Brigade.
The Jason proceeds direct to Calcutta. The United
Service steamer has also been taken up by the East
India Company for the conveyance of 509 officers
and troops for Kurracliee and Bombay.
The Gann et screw steam-sloop, recently launched
from Pembroke Dockyard, is in the hands of Mr.
Martyn, Assistant Master-Attendant of Devonport,
by whom, when jury-rigged, she will be navigated
round to that port, and immediately prepared for
the pennant. The Gannet is a handsome vessel,
and pierced for 11 guns. The following are her
chief dimensions;--Length between perpendiculars,
151 ft. ; ditto of keel for tonnage, 131 ft. 3iu. ; ex-
treme breadth, 29ft. -lin. ; breadth for tonnage,
28ft. 9in.; ditto, moulded, 28ft. Sin. ; depth of
hold, 15ft. 10in.; burden, 277 tons.
The Pembroke Dockyard Battalion has been dis-
banded, in compliance with the orders received last
week to that Effect. The men have been allowed
to retain their clothing, and the adjutants have
been placed on half-pay.

EVIL RESULTS OF THE PRIZE CATTLE

SYSTEAL

The following paper has been published by Mr.
F. J. Gant, assistant-surgeon to the Royal Free
Hospital, late staff surgeon to her Majesty's mili-
tary hospital, Crimea and Scutari :
" It must be admitted by every one that the mainte-
nance of health is a question of higher interest than the
mere removal of disease. Prevention is better than curs
and therefore the Hygienic art of preserving health
surpasses the appliances of medicine and surgery. But
the resources of Hygiene are not equally obviou4 to all
ordinary ebiervers. Certain bodily wants when ill
supplied are soon discovered. Tee air we breathe may
contaminate, but we can often smell and thereby avoid
an impure atmosphere. Our clothing may be insufficient,
but the wintry wind will warn us of tuis. A bilious
headache instinctively prompts more active (nerd:id,
while fatigue suggests the necessity of repose. Air,
temperature, exercise, and sleep, are positive Hygienic
requirements, which severally proclaim their own
demand when defective, and thus the tide of life flows
smoothly on, each bodily want being wisely suggested
by an appropriate and almost unerring instinctive feel-
ing. But it is otherwise with food. True it is that we
eat when hungry, but this sensation dues not prove an
infallible guide in our choicenf food, still less a criterion
of its nutritive quality. Hence, therefore, science has
been directed to this question, and the best method of
reariog cattle used for food has received especial atten-1
tion. For this purpose the Smithfield Cattle Clob was
originally instituted in the year 1798, and it was
v ith the view of ascertaining how far this intention had
bees fulfilled by upwards of 50 years' experience that'
the writer lately visited the prize animals and others
exhibited at the Baker-street Bazaar, and took n .tes of
his observations. He first observed the cattle, whe her
Devons, Herefords, or short-horns ; but he could
detect no external sign of disease except in two Devon
cow,, cla s 4, Nos. 32 and 33, prize 51., each of which
wee suffering from prolapsus vagir.as. One of thein
looked very ill, and laid her head and neck flat on
the ground like a greyhound. I pointed out these
animals to a man who was drawing water, and I asked
him if their condition was one of common occurrence.
Ile said, I know nothing of them beasties in p'sicler,
but it's the ease with many on 'em, I knows that.'

" I passed on to the pigi. A pen of three, belonging to
H.R.let. the Prince Consort, happened to be placed in a
ebdreuapthe more easily, but
favourable light for observation, and I particularly
noticed their condition. They lay helplessly on their
Bides,
against each other's
endeavouringa pr propped
their respiration was loud, suffocating, and at long inter-
vals. Then you heard a short catching snore, which
shook the whole body of the animal, and passed with the
backs,ides with
a isi f their
noses
motion of a wave over its fat taut face, which felt cold. I
thought how much the heart under such circumstances
must be labouring to propel the blood through the lungs
and throughout the body. The gold medal pigs of Mr.
Morland were in a similar condition, if anything worse,
for they snored and gasped for breath, their mouths being
opened as well as their nostrils dilated, at each inspira-
tion. From a pig we only expect a grunt, but not a snore.
These animals, only 12 months and 10 days old, were
marked improved Carleon breed.' They, with their
fellows just mentioned, of 11 months and 23 days, had
early come to grief. Three pigs of the black breed were
in a similar state, at 7 months 3 weeks and 5 days, yet
snob animals, the judges hiehly commend.'
" Of the sheep, I noticed more particularly those of
the Duke of Richmond. A pen of three short-woolled
Southdowns of one year old seemed to have rather heavy
heads. One, more especially, looked crestfallen.
" Throughout the exhibition one circumstance parti-
cularly arrested my attention. It was the size of the
animals compared with their respective ages. The
bullocks averaged from two to three years ; the pigs
and sheep were about one year old. When I contrasted
the enormous bulk of each animal with the short period
in which so enuch fat or flesh had been produced, I
certainly indulged in a physiological reflection on the
high-pressure work against time which certain internal
organs, as the stomach., liver, heart, arid lungs, must
have undergone at ouch a very early age. I,
therefore,
resolved to follow up these animals to their several des-
tinations, and to inspect their condition afier death.
And here I must record my acknowledgments to Messrs.
Jeffery, King, Gorton, Sack, Sinkler, and Smith, of
Hampstead, for having courteously admitted me into
their slaughter-houses. This was necessary, in order
that I night identify those animals which I had selected
for examination. These were the gold and silver prize
bullocks, heifers, and sheep which renia.ned in
London. I witnessed thedeath of many of these animals,.
and at once removed the heart, lunge, liver, &c., of each
for further examination. I then made dissections of the
organs mentioned, and procured faithful drawings of
both their visible and microscopic appearances. I spared
neither time, trouble, nor expense in my pursuit of the
facts, and subjoined are the resalts
:---
Siefeea,—, Fat wether sheep, short.woolled &birth-
downs, one year old ; the Duke of Richmond, exhibitor
and breeder. No. 1. The heart weighs 10ioz. ; .its cx
ternal surface is very soft, greasy, and of a dirty brown-
ish yellow colour, here and there mottled with yellow
spots of fat imbedded in the substance of the heart. On
its anterior surface (left ventricle) is a large opaque
patch of a stone grey colour. These external appear-
ances o )ntra-t remarkably with the clear, bright reddish
colour, and firm, crimp consistence of healthy hearts of
sheep, four years ad. On opecing the two ventricular
cavities, their internal surface and substance were equally
soft, greasy, and
yellow throughout—an appearance due
to the infusion of fat between and into the muscular
fibres of which the heart should chiefly consist. This
substitution of fat for muscle is proved to have ensued
by the microscope. For, when thus examined, the mus-
cular fibres no longer presented. the characteristic cross
markings (state of anatoniists) .but the fibrillw within
the fibres were entirely broken up, and replaced by
bright globu_es of oily fat. The healtby structure of this
heart had, therefore, thoroughly degenerated by its
conversion into fat. _

___ •
" No. 2 was a fat wether sheep, shoe-woolled, one
year old. The heart was in a similar condition, but
onjy certain portions of its substance had been converted
was thickly studded with large dark spots beneath its
et.ritoTnhael liver
These spots are the extremities of
weighed 21b. 100., and its surface
thint intohe
hepaticf veins gorged with blood, and this hepatic
reagesii.in was due t r the feeble contraction of the
diseased heart during life.
No. 3 was another fat wether sheep, of very long
woDlled breed, one year old; Lord Berners. The heart
weighed 10ioz., and was partly converted into fat, but
NAB so than that of Nn, 1, the sheep of the Duke of
Richmond. Under the microscope the muscular fibre
wire found in the first stage of degeneration id° fc.t •
Toe I.vtr weighed 21b. 2ez., was of a dark purple c Jou,
and showed tnarkedmongestion of the hepatic veins... The
lunge were flabby, and did not crepitate with air on
pressure between the fingers. - Many nodules were seep,
each of the size and shape of a kidney bean, imbedded
in the substance of either lung. These lamps contained
numerous worms (filaria) in various stages of development.
Numerous small hard tubercles were also scattered o
the surface of the lunge, some grey and transparent,
others consisting of a chalky matter, one of the latter
having actually ruptured the pleura (enveloping mem-
brane:of the lungs). I selected this animal for slaughter
and he appeared the fattest of the pet, but his breathing,
was distressed.

"No. 4 was a fat wether sheep, long and short, woolled,