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

NORTHUMBERLAND.

At the general quarter sessions for the county of
Northumberland, held at the Moot-ball, Newcastle-
on-Tyne, onWednesday, Mr. C.W. Orde, chairman,
Mr. THOMAS ANDERSON brought the subject of
the cattle disease before the notice of the magis-
trates, and said that he had first of all to ask them
to adopt the powers given them by the late order in
Council. He wished them thereby to do all that
they possibly could to prevent the spread of the
cattle disease at once, lest the time unfortunately
should arrive when it would be too late to make the
attempt. (Hear.) If the disease were not extin-
guished before the spring, when cattle would have
of necessity to be turned out to pasture, and would
have to pass along the roads—the consequences
might be far worse. Unless the markets or fairs
were stopped, he imagined that nothing could be
done to effectively prevent the plague destroying
the cattle of the county. That would be a very
inconvenient step to take, but in dealing with a
great evil like that, they must make up their minds
to submit to inconveniences, to great trouble and
expense. (Hear.) The disease, as far as he knew,
did not admit of a cure, but it did of prevention,
To obtain prevention it was necessary to obtain per-
fect isolation, and to obtain perfect isolation, the re-
moval of cattle must, as far as possible, be stopped.
For his own part he should wish to see the removal
of fat and lean cattle stopped, because he thought
that there could be no greater difficulty in the way
of the farmers of that county sending their cattle as
dead meat than there was in the way of the farmers
of Aberdeenshire sending their cattle to London as
dead meat. (Hear, hear.) With the view of ac-
complishing the object above set forth, Mr. Ander-
son introduced a resolution embracing certain prin-
ciples—namely, that all proceedings of the Court as
a local authority on the subject of preventing the
spread of the cattle plague should be null and void,
and that the Order of Council should be accepted
as the basis'; that it• should not be lawful after the
sth of January for any person to bring any animal
from any other part into the county within their
jurisdiction, and that no person should send any
animals from ono part to another within their juris-
diction. The second clause could not apply to
animals sent by railway, and the third might be
subjected to the certificate of two justices.
Earl GREY said he entirely agreed with Mr. An-
derson that the cattle plague was a serious calamity,
and that they would have to submit to great incon-
venience, trouble, and expense in the hope of get-
ting rid of it. They must, however, take care to
frame their resolutions in such a manner as to re-
duce the inconveniences to the minimum. The last
proviso of Mr. Anderson was not quite to his mind.
A man might have a couple of farms and wish to
remove his stock from one to the other owing to
shortness of food or the like, but by the regulation
to which he referred he would be unable to do
so without obtaining an order from two justices.
On the other hand, there was no doubt that it
was extremelynecessary to see that any proviso which
, they introduced should not open the door to abuses