460 General Cattle Mutual Insurance Fund. 



II. Cattle Insueance is desieable. 



That the insurance of cattle is as desirable as the insurance of 

 houses, goods, furniture, and ships, it is unnecessary to go into 

 any argument to prove. Insurance is open to abuse, and let us 

 suppose that on this ground fire and marine insurances are 

 abolished, and how many persons will every month be ruined ! 

 Into what a state of alarm many of the persons now insured will 

 be thrown by the approach or even the mention of a fire. The 

 large Companies, whose 



" venti;res are not in one bottom trusted, 

 Nor to one place," 



remain at ease as they insure their own ships ; while of the 

 merchant with a solitary ship, the " mind is tossing on the 

 ocean." The winds, the sands, and the "holy edifice of stone" 

 itself, remind him that he is " even now worth this, and now 

 worth nothing." But the farmer's nerves are no stronger than 

 the merchant's ; and the loss of property in animals who share 

 some of that essence which is called life, undoubtedly shakes 

 the mind more than the destruction of inanimate structures. 

 Hence panic in all quarters : the farmer hears of the ruin of his 

 neighbour, and sees in imagination all his own cattle drooping 

 and dying : for in the presence of a great indefinite danger 

 the mind is bewildered ; and, dreading the loss of all, a man 

 does not resort to available means for saving any. 



In the cities of the Continent, cholera a few months ago 

 excited inconceivable terror : in England we waited, counted the 

 deaths, and fell back upon past experience. None of the Eng- 

 lish insurance offices shut their doors : all was known and was 

 calculated beforehand. English coolness here had fair play. 

 But of the Cattle -Plague we have little definite knowledge, save 

 that it kills 85 per cent of the animals it attacks, and that its ac- 

 tivity is increasing every week.* It is invading new districts. 

 Not only the farmer, but every Englishman is disturbed at the 

 prospect of the "Roast Beef of Old England" vanishing. 

 Measures to reassure, rather than to stimulate, the public mind 

 are required ; and one of these measures is unquestionably a 

 system of general cattle insurance. It would at once inspire 

 confidence, and give time for the operation of hygienic measures. 



I cannot agree with those who think that the tendency of 

 insurance up to seven-tenths of the value of stock would slacken 

 the zeal of the owners, either in seeking for remedies or in 



* Written in January, but is still applicable, as we are open to other attacks of 

 Rinderpest and of epizootics of other kinds. 



