484 REPORT OX THE TRANSIT OF STOCK. 



considerable amount of labour, but there seems no other way of 

 managing it; and considering the smallness of the amount of pig 

 traffic, it might be accomplished without any great difficulty. 

 With arrangements such as these, we believe pigs might be con- 

 veyed by rail any distance without much harm. 



Before closing this section, we recommend the placing of stock 

 transit by rail under strict government inspection, as without 

 some constant supervision, and a readier means of investigating 

 grievances and punishing neglect than now exists, it is hopeless 

 to expect much improvement in the system of railway transit. 



We now approach the last section of our subject, viz., Disease 

 in reference to Transit. It is scarcely possible to over-estimate 

 the importance of this consideration. Disease in the located 

 individual may mean death to that animal, and danger to a cer- 

 tain number of animals in its immediate neighbourhood ; but at 

 the utmost this is limited to a circle, and that not a large one, 

 but in the individual in transit the danger is increased tenfold. 

 A single animal may carry infection along many miles of road, 

 or into half a dozen counties, and therefore the evil of disease is 

 greatly intensified by the mere fact of the transit. of the animal. 

 The subject may be divided into two parts, viz., disease existing 

 previous to transit, and disease engendered during transit. 



The first of these is perhaps the most important, and unfor- 

 tunately is too patent to all to need proof, if proof were re- 

 quired, viz., that stock labouring under disease is constantly 

 being sent to market ; of course, disease in a perceptible stage 

 is not meant, but disease in a stage too incipient to be detected 

 by the sharpest and most practised eye, though none the less 

 real and dangerous on that account. Reference would only have 

 to be made to the passing record of agricultural matters to find, 

 almost any day, the fullest illustrations of the fact ; but for the 

 most striking proof perhaps that can be adduced, the history of 

 the cattle plague may be taken not only as establishing the fact 

 of diseased animals being moved about the country, but also as 

 showing the disastrous effects of such traffic ; and although in 

 pleuro-pneumonia, scab, and other infectious diseases, the results 

 are not so well marked as in cases of cattle plague, they are never- 

 theless equally real and far more destructive ; for although that 

 pestilence swept off its hundreds of thousands, it lasted but a 

 comparatively short time, and all its ravages were known ; 

 whereas these other evils are constantly at work, and one-half of 

 the loss they cause is never published. Without, therefore, giv- 

 ing a list of details, which the experience of most farmers can 

 only too readily supply, we assume it as an established fact, and 

 one, too, calling most urgently for remedy. 



A complete remedy for an evil so gigantic and so subtle may 



