The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-25 00:00:00

ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS.

A paper on the cattle plague was brought forward in
this section by Mr. W. SMITH, hon. consulting veterinary
surgeon to the Norfolk Cattle Plague Association. After
describing the nature of the disorder and pointing out
that, at all events as regarded the county of Norfolk, the
treatment by means of drugs, homwopathy, and vaccina•
tion, signally failed, the author furnished an interesting
sketch of the rise and progress of the disease in this
country. The cattle plague had been known, he said, for
more than 1,000 years to have periodically devastated the
continent of Europe. About 810 it was supposed to have
visited England, but there was no authentic record of
its having broken out again until 1714, when
it appeared in Islington. About the middle of
June it committed great ravages for about three months,
and disappeared towards Christmas in the same year. It
reappeared in April 1745, being probably imported by
some calves from Holland. It lasted twelve years, and
killed many thousand heads of cattle, In March 1770,
the disease was imported into Pertsoy, in Moray Firth,
but was stamped out with a comparatively trifling loss by
the judicious and timely slaughter of the affected beasts
and those which had been in contact with them ; and in
Aberdeen, in 1865, it was twice got rid of
by the adoption of similar means. The particulars
of the outbreak of 1865 were then gone into at length by
Mr. Smith, who ascribed the introduction of the disease
into Norfolk on that occasion to a lot of cattle brought
from the metropolitan into the local market. Some of
these cattle were conveyed into neighbouring districts, and
imparted the disease there also. The number of cattle
attacked from the Ist July to the 21st of October
was 705, of which 296 were killed and 290 died.
By November 25, 1,004 beasts had been attacked,
the large increase being due to the utterly
powerless nature of the eight Orders in Council which had
been issued. The above and other statistics of the disease
in Norfolk, shewing with what rapidity the number of
beasts attacked increased as soon as the provision for the
compulsory slaughter of those infected was removed, and
how the number as rapidly lessened immediately after the
order again came in force, were adduced to prove the utter
uselessness of treating and endeavouring to preserve
infected animals. They must, argued Mr. Smith, be at
once destroyed whenever and wherever disease breaks
out. Legislation, it was pointed out, had been
urged on a little Way in the right direction,
as the Act of last session was calculated to control pleuro-
pneumonia in a slight degree by inflicting a penalty on
persons exposing animals so affected in the market. Next
session, it was hoped, Government would go a step further,
and prevent such animals from being moved from place to
place on the public thoroughfares until all fear of infection
had passed away. This would tend, in the opinion of
those best acquainted with the subject, to give the cattle
plague a severe check, and consequently would be the
means of cheapening food in this country more effectually
than any other course yet known, not even excepting
foreign importation. The growing desire to cheapen food
had its advantages, but it had also its evils. Free trade in
animals was, to a great extent, as the member for East
Norfolk had phrased it, "free trade in disease." The
paper concluded with the expression of a hope that the
establishment of a market for imported animals would
have the effect of remedying the evils which were likely to
follow from the opposition to the Foreign Market Bill of
last session by the opponents of the present Government,
who would see, when perhaps it was too late, the folly of
the course they took.