American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1872-11-16

j THE rapidity with which the horse dis
ease disseminates itself borders on tie
amazing. 1t is not two weeks since il
crossed over into the United States from
Canada, and vet to-day it RACES in New
FORK and Brooklyn and has made its ap-
pearance in Boston. Up to this time we
| are spared the Information that it has
turned South and West, but any moment
may bring those tidings. An active horse
could not travel as fast as this strange
malady. The seeds of the disease seem in
the air. and wherever the infection lights
the disease widens its circles as fast and
far as the ripples on disturbed lake.
With such 4 pOrtentOus facility of spread
ing it seems as if any ordinary measure of
inspection or quarantine, such as we have
heretofore suggested. would be useless,
and with such an unexampled virulence
as it has exhibited in the day or two it has
been in the city it is idle to seek to sepa-
rate the diseased horses from the sound.
A moments contact seems sufficient to
communicate the contagion, and the APP
parently sound animal reveals the maladY
before it can be taken away from the in
fected stable. 1t will be a novel thing for
New York to miss its throng of carts, car
riages. Omnibuses. and other vehicles on a
weekday, and still more novel to be with
out the street cars on any day, but the
prospect of witnessing such strange
scenes is imminent. If the disease here
runs the same course it has elsewhere we
may look to see Broadway in its narrow
est portions as easy to cross as n country
road, and the busiest car-tracks now as
idle and untenanted as Broadway. The
injury to business and the woeful incOn-
venience to the thousands who live miles
up town and must traverse the distance
to and fro daily will be incalculable.
As to the honest and faithful brutes
themselves, upon whom this disorder has
a hp fnyyr moi ffN fro
their absence the full measure of their
usefulness. A Toronto journal says the
absence of horses in the streets of that
city when the fever was at its height gave
an air of dizziness to the whole town. 1t
seemed as if part of the city's life were
gone. 1t is to be hoped we may not be
made to have the same feelings, but the
chances are that we will. The POSSIBLE
ty, or perhaps we should say probability.
is not one pleasant to contemplate; and
vet there is at least one consOlatory reflec-
tiOn-that bad as the disease is it is not,
like one or two other complaints to which
the horse is subject, dangerous to human
life. One extremely aggravated form of
catarrhal affection has been known to
communicate itself from brutes to human
beings with fatal results. Happily there
is not the least danger of any such hOr-
rible result i'm this case. The distinction
between the brute and the human being
mas been mercltully made so broad that III
none but the most highly exceptional
eases is the line of demarcation over
stepped by disease. The horse does not
die of yellow fever or the man of epizootic
Influenza, which is the name the veteri-
nary surgeons give this complaint. Else
where, as we have mentioned, the dis
ease has, with the exception of in Buffalo,
not been very fatal to the animals at
tackled. and indeed with rest, warmth.
and cleanliness there is every chance of
recovery in some ten days or so, but in this
city there is one great reason why the
mortality bids fair to be great. The great
bulk of horses here are used in the car
and omnibus lines and for business dray-
age. The supply being equal to the de-
mand they must work even if sick, and
work to horse even slightly affected by
the epizootic Influenza is death. The loss
of our hOrse-owners will, we fear, aggre-
gate millions.-N. Y. Paper, Oct. 81.