Beport on Steppe Murrain or Rinderpest. 217 



where they are enacted. Take as one illustration the quantity 

 of food which is lost to the people by the burying of animals, in 

 whose system the malady has made but little progress. We are 

 exceedingly jealous lest any observations of ours should be sup- 

 posed to give encouragement to the sale of diseased meat, but 

 nfter fifteen years' experience of pleuro-pneumonia in this country, 

 and of the sale of the carcases of animals, the subjects of it, we 

 do not hesitate to state that the flesh is fitted for food in the 

 earlv stages of the affection. 



The surprise in the continuance of the system of killing 

 and burying bovine animals becomes the greater when we see it 

 adopted in a country where the sale of -horseflesh, as an article of 

 food, is both legalised and encouraged by the government. In 

 Altona we passed by the shop of one of these horse-butchers, and 

 saw exposed for sale part of the hind quarters, and sundry pieces 

 of the flesh of a horse, and also the liver and kidneys of the 

 animal. We were tempted to walk in, when we were informed by 

 the proprietor that there were four other establishments of the same 

 kind in the town, but that his was " the original one." He said 

 that so ready a sale was found for the meat that it was with great 

 difficulty he could procure horses enough for his customers. 

 The price ranged from about 2d. to ?>d. per lb. English money, 

 and it appeared that the meat was often bought by persons who 

 could not be properly said to belong to the lower classes. We 

 were invited to see the establishment, and visited the slaughter- 

 house and stable. In the former, besides more meat, was hanging 

 the lower part of the fore leg, with the foot of the animal last 

 slaughtered, which had been put aside for the inspection of the 

 police ; and in the latter were standing two aged and worn-out 

 horses waiting their turn to be led to the stake. These butcheries' 

 are licensed bv the government, and are under the supervision of 

 the police. Notice has to be given before a horse can be killed, 

 when the veterinary surgeon of the department attends and 

 examines the animal, and if found to be free from constitutional 

 disease, notwithstanding it may be incapacitated for work from 

 lameness or other defects, he certifies to that effect, and for the 

 sake of identity brands the animal on its hoof. Within a given 

 time the animal must be killed, and its leg and foot produced for 

 the inspection and satisfaction of the police. 



Sweden a^cd Norway. 



We find, by a perusal of official documents which have been 

 placed at our disposal, that the fear of the introduction of 

 pleuro-pneumonia from Holstein, led the government of Sweden 

 to interdict the importation of cattle from that Duchy in Aug. 1856, 



