The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-08 00:00:00

Mr. Disraeli, M.P., on the Cattle Plague.

On Saturday afternoon a committee of landowners
and agriculturists from Berks, Bucks, and Middle-
sex, assembled at the Castle Hotel, High-street,
Windsor, for the purpose of framing rules for a
mutual cattle association, the benefits of which are
to extend to all places within a ten mile radius of
that town. Major-General Seymour, Equerry in
Ordinary to her Majesty, was to have presided, but
did not reach Windsor till about two hours after
the meeting had commenced, and Mr. R. B. Harvey,
M.P. for Bucks, was consequently called to the
chair. Mr. F. Buckland, the hon. secretary, read
a letter from Major-General Seymour, also onefrom
Major-General the Hon. A. N. Hood, approving of
the resolutions passed at the previous meeting. He
then read a communication which had been received
from Mr. Disraeli, M.P. for Bucks, dated " Hugh-
enden Manor, Jan. 3." In this Mr. Disraeli, after
expressing the gratification he always felt in co-
operating with his constituents in any measure for
the public welfare, observed that he had great doubts
as to whether the mutual association proposed would
be able to bear the burden of the pressure which
would be put upon it if the pestilence should fall on
the heads of its members. The county of Buck-
ingham ought to have established at the outset an
assurance association upon the principle of limited

liability, with a capital of £50,000, in 5,000 shares,
£1 to be paid on each share. Every owner of stock
ought to pay a regular premium on his policy, and
take shares to the amount of 25 per cent. on the
sum insured. These conditions would ensure pru-
dence. Thus the landed proprietors might take any
number of shares they liked, the £1 per share paid
being an immediate contribution to the fund, while
the policies would represent their amount of gua-
rantee to the community. Again, 50 shares
would represent au immediate subscription of £5O,
and a guarantee of £450. These suggestions
were based upon sound commercial principles.
Premiums would be received, a dividend
shared, and shaies distributed, and the amount
of premiums being considerable, there would be
a large and efficient capital for purposes of com-
pensation. When the nature of the calamity was
first known he proposed to hold a county meeting,
when he would have brought forward to adopt some
plan of the kind ; but, unfortunately, the graziers
and the farmers in the Vale with whom he com-
municated believed for a time that the Government
would interfere. The letter concluded with some
other observations upon the subject of local mutual
assurance associations. Communications from Lord
Enfield, Sir H. A. Hoare. M.P. for this borough ;
Mr. Benyon, M.P. ; the High Sheriff of Bucks ;
Mr. Farrard, &c., were also read to the meeting. It
was then resolved that the association should be
called " The Windsor Mutual Cattle Insurance
Association," and that its limits should extend to
any place within a ten mile radius of Windsor. Mr.
Simpson, the inspector, tendered a statement to the
meeting with respect to the prevailing amount of
disease within the proposed districts of the associa-
tion. He had made inquiries of different inspectors,
and found that in the county of Bucks there were
two cases at Wraysbury, in the hundred of Stoke,
while Burnham was free. In Middlesex and Staines
Moor there were two cases. There was a case at
Chobham, in Surrey, and also at Winkfield-park,
in the Maidenhead division of the county of Berks.
The borough of Windsor, Windsor county division,
and Maidenhead borough were free from the plague.
The rules of the new association having been con-
firmed, the meeting separated.

"THERE WERE GIANTS IN THOSE DAYS."-A Lon-
don journalist recently asked how it came to pass
that all the living giants seemed starting up here at once
—Chang, Anak, the interesting young lady from Cali-

fornia, said to weigh more than 6001bs, and a Russian
youth just arrived, who, in the language of statuaries,
has " not yet been unveiled ?" No answer, we believe,
has yet been returned to the question; but some extraor-
dinary intelligence of a race of old giants comes to us from
the neighbourhood of the Rocky Mountains. Itappears that
en Meagher's Bar, opposite Nevada, there have recently
been discovered fossils which go to show that this part of the
world was once peopled by a race of men 10 and 12 feet high.
They were embedded about eight feet, in what might be
termed a close diluvial deposit, and in what the configura-
tion of the country indicates was once the eddy of a river.
A jawbone dug up is double the size of an ordinary human
jawbone, the width being fully five inches. It is in a per-
fect state of preservation ; so perfect that, had it been of
ordinary size, one would have supposed that its owner had
not made his (or her) exit from the vale of tears more than
15 or 20 years ago. The enamel of the teeth still remains
bright and uninjured by the action of fire, water, or air.
Not a tooth is lost. The discoverer considers, from a mea-
surement of ribs and other bones, that the possessor must
have been at least 12 feet high. In the Montana Post aro
many more particulars of this wonderful discovery, with
the assurance that the bones described may be seen for a
fed days iu the counting-room of the Poet.