JPresent State of the Cattle Plague. 497 



of what Lis fellow-laboui-cr gets iu Scotland and in Ireland. Again, 

 we have to consider the enormous infantine death-rate in this country, 

 the dcarness of milk preventing its being used in the nourishment of 

 children, and causing the substitution for it of a nasty sugar-sop. 

 That supi)lemented by the demon Opium, which is but too largely 

 used, the natural result, as you read in the register of deaths, is 

 I)hysical debility from the birth. And you mil observe in the streets, 

 in hospitals, in gaols, in lunatic asylums, persons with enlarged bones 

 and swollen glands, all suggesting the eliects of deficient nutrition. 



Further, we have sent cattle diseases to America and Australia, 

 and let us not fail to turn an anxious glance towards Ireland, that 

 poor, torn, distracted sister-country. These and a hundred other 

 considerations disi)ose us to concur with the writer in 1747 who 

 said, in regard to the cattle-plague question of that day, " Whatever 

 concerns the good of mankind ought to be the object of every man's 

 care and protection." The plague nearly concerns us all, and 

 especially the indigent. 



There are two or three further introductory considerations before 

 we come to the two main questions set apart for discussion this day. 

 The first of these is that we in this coimtry are a law-loving people, 

 and it cannot be right for public companies, or for any in high 

 j)osition, to say that they will evade the law. Nothing has more 

 struck mo during the progress of this cattle plague in the midst of 

 an infected district than the great obedience which the poor have 

 paid to the necessarily most severe and restrictive orders. There 

 are now, as there were throughout the last visitation, and there will 

 be throughout this, those who continually cry, " Peace, peace ! " when 

 there is no peace. There is also great danger from the single-thread- 

 of-inquiry people. I will explain what I mean in this way. Those 

 who are accustomed to study human nature in coiu-ts of law are 

 aware how numerous the people are who seize a single thread of an 

 inquiry, and depend upon that single thread until it snaps. Whereas, 

 if we desire to take a strong pull at any question, we grasp all the 

 threads, and twist them together into a very cable of proof. 



The first of the two questions appointed for to-day's discussion is 

 the present aspect of the cattle plague. A little cloud rose out of 

 the sea, small like a man's hand, but the signs of the times were not 

 read. Nevertheless, there was the still small warning voice of the 

 veterinary surgeons, who, as Mr. Barron observes in his report on 

 the cattle plague in Belgium presented to the English Parliament, 

 were consistent from the first. Authority waited for public opinion, 

 and public oi^inion waited for authority, and hence our present 

 position. Then, at the outset, we stumbled over the want of agri- 

 cultural statistics — that is, the national stock-taking, or, rather, the 

 most imj)ortaut part of the national stock-taking. 



It is a singular fact that has been proved, that whilst there is an 

 objection to agricultural statistics amongst the farmers of England, 

 there is none whatever amongst the farmers of Scotland. What makes 

 the difference between the two countries, sei^ai-ated only by the Tweed? 

 I can suggest no other consideration than this, that at one time tithes 



2 K 2 



