502 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 



the desirableness of killing diseased beasts ; and I take it tliat from 

 Virgil down to Professor Simonds all the great authorities have held 

 pretty much the same view ujion that point. In the same year there 

 is a record that in Quarter Sessions in Cheshire it was observed that 

 such as began to kill as soon as the distemper appeared lost very few, 

 and they speak of the wretched, tragic condition of those who had put 

 faith in medicines and letting the disease take its coui'se. In the 

 records of the same Quarter Sessions tliere are instances of success in 

 slauo-htering out, in many counties and places. Then it is said about 

 killing : " Eegard the sound : to save one or two you risk many." " If 

 the farmer at Elton had killed his cattle, Cheshire might have been 

 saved 6000 then dead." Next I find this question: ".Do you think 

 there is no cure ? " The answer is " None. Everything has been 

 tried in vain ; some remedies appeared at first to answer, but on 

 further trial they failed. My own cattle I would kill at once rather 

 than endanger the sound, and foiil my premises and fodder." To the 

 question what right Government had to order killing ? the answer is : 

 " The maxim of law that a man may not do with his own that which 

 will hurt another's." In the year 1752, the eighth year of the great 

 plague, the disease, as ajjpears by orders in Sessions, was in Somerset- 

 shire, where twenty cattle were shot by order of the Clerk of the 

 Peace in the month of May. These were appraised and paid for out 

 of the county stock. There were other slaughters and payments of a 

 like nature ordered. 



We come now to consider the subject of convalescents. Public 

 opinion at first was alive to slaughtering out, but hardly to the 

 slaughtering of convalescents. The old writers at the time of the great 

 plague say, doctoring leads to the spread of the disease. Lancisi, a 

 great Italian ^vriter upon this subject, says that cures spread the 

 disease. So that it would seem that animals which have " sufiered 

 many things from many physicians " generally die in the long run. 



Compensation. 



I come next to the important question of compensation. If there is 

 to be curing of diseased animals, then compensation will break down ; 

 becai;se the very object of comj)ensation is that diseased animals 

 should be slaughtered as soon as they are attacked. But if they are 

 to be doctored and are then killed, compensation is clearly jiaid for 

 nothing. This was well pointed out in the ' Times ' of yesterday. I 

 repeat, then, that the object of compensation is that slaughter should 

 take place at once, and that if a system of nursing is adopted compen- 

 sation must utterly break down. Dm-ing the great plague compensa- 

 tion was called by its right name, premium ; that is a better name 

 than compensation ; for the fact is, that it was a bonus on killing for 

 the good of society. One-half the value was then j^aid, and compensa- 

 tion broke down because the money came from the Trcasxu'y, and 

 there was no local interest or power of observation to prevent frauds. 

 Forty shillings was then the value of half a cow. Afterwards they 

 came to the county stock, or rate, and it is presumed that tlie payments 

 from the county stock having been made with greater local knowledge. 



