856 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



LIVE STOCK QUARANTINE ACTS. 



One hundred and forty alleged violations by persons and railroad 

 companies, of the act of March 3, 1905, "An act to enable tlio Secretary 

 of Agrifulturo to establish and maintain quarantine districts, to per- 

 mit and ret^ulato the movement of cattle and other live stock there- 

 from, and tor other purposes" (33 Stat., 1264), were reported to the 

 Attorney-General during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1910. Eight 

 alleged violations of the act of May 29, 1884, "An act for the estab- 

 lishment of the Bureau of Animal Industry, to prevent the exporta- 

 tion of diseased cattle, and to provide means for the suppression and 

 extirpation of pleuro-pneumonia and other conta^^ious diseases 

 among domestic animals" (23 Stat., 31), were reported to the Attor- 

 ney-General during the same year. 



At the beginning of the fiscal year ended June 30, 1910, 125 cases 

 involving violations of the act of March 3, 1905, and 7 cases involving 

 violations of the act of May 29, 1884, reported during previous fiscal 

 years, remained unsettled. 



In 20 cases under the act of March 3, 1905, fines aggregating the 

 sum of $2,600, and in 4 cases under the act of May 29, 1884, fines 

 amounting to $370, were imposed, upon pleas of guilty, during the 

 fiscal year, exclusive of costs in each case. In one case, under the 

 former act, the two defendants were committed to jail in default of 

 payment of the fine. 



Five cases under the act of March 3, 1905, were dismissed; in 4 

 cases the grand jury failed to return indictments; and in 1 case 

 sentence was suspended. 



In a case under the act of March 3, 1905, against the Louisville and 

 Nashville Railroad Company, in which the defendant company failed 

 to comply with the regulations made and promulgated under the act 

 requiring the placarding of cars and annotating of waybills, decided 

 March 15, 1910, in the district court for the northern district of 

 Alabama (176 Fed. Rep., 942; Circular No. 34, Office of the Solicitor), 

 a demurrer had been interposed by the defendant attacking the consti- 

 tutionality of the act upon the ground that its effect is to delegate 

 legislative authority to the executive, and because no complete offense 

 is defined by the terms of the statute. It was held that the act was 

 not invalid as, in effect, attempting to create an offense for violation 

 of the Department rule, and that the statute, in and of itself, completely 

 creates the offense, the effect of the provisions authorizing the Sec- 

 retary of Agriculture to permit shipments when the public safety 

 permits, under certain conditions, constituting merely a suspensory 

 power in specific instances, conditioned upon the observance of certain 

 safeguards to be prescribed by the rules of the Department. Similar 

 demurrers interposed by the same defendant in three other cases 

 brought in as many districts are now pending. 



