468 General Cattle Mutual Insurance Fund. 



DuKATiox OF Disease. 



Average nTimlDers sick = S 



Attacks of sickness in a week = A 



s 13083 



Duration of disease in weeks = — = — ^ — ^-— = 1'42 weeks = 9*94 days. 



A 9li43 ^ 



(2.) Distinctive Characters of Cattle, as affecting 

 THEIR Insurance. 



1. Cattle are slaughtered for food at various ages, and are 

 probably not kept on an average four years. 



2. Their lives are further shortened by diseases of various kinds. 

 In this respect they resemble human beings, but epidemics are 

 not so fatal as epizootics. In the present day cattle drink gene- 

 rally from the water of ponds into which their dung and urine 

 drop, or are washed from fields and roads — the precise condi- 

 tions which render cholera and dysentery so fatal in India. 



3. They are exposed to emanations from each other in crowded 

 sheds and yards, at fairs, in railway trucks, and in ships.* They 

 are fed in unnatural conditions. 



4. Their mortality from all causes is not known ; but judging 

 from analogy it must be highest in calves, lowest in yearlings, 

 and after the second year increase year by year as age advances. 

 The mortality under attacks of disease is probably governed by 

 similar laws. 



5. The value of cattle varies much, according to age, sex, and 

 breed ; the state of the market and of the season ; or according 

 as they are fat or lean, in milk or dry, in calf or barren. Some 

 of these changes are very rapid. A fatting ox in the last stage 

 will cost about 10^. per week for keep, and the increase in value 

 ought to be proportionate. These changes have to be taken 

 into account by an office insuring cattle ; it is necessary to take 

 measures that on the whole will make the office the worst market 

 to Avhich the owner can carry his animal — that is, to insure for 

 less than the minimum value. 



6. Cattle are not so easily identified as men : and they are 

 transferred from owner to owner, from breeding district to 

 feeding district, from the cowhouse and stall to the market. 



7. Short-term insurances alone are applicable : they should 

 not run for more than a year nor less than 3 months. 



8. The policies on registration to be transferable on indorse- 

 ment with the animals. This registration of sales and prices 

 may be in other respects useful. 



* They are hurried to the railway station in the heat of the day ; left there to 

 chill till midnight ; whirled along through the chill dank air of autumn nights — a 

 modem and most prolific source of disease. — P. H. F. 



