30 The Cattle Plague. | Jan., 
at Edinburgh, in which healthy sheep had been kept for weeks in the 
sanatorium where diseased cattle were under treatment, seemed to 
show that the disease was not communicable.* In an address on 
this subject to the Wayland (Norfolk) Agricultural Society, Mr. 
Woods, of Merton, an undoubted authority on sheep management, 
discussed the whole history of the Crown Point flock during the 
past summer, and gave it for his opinion that the disease which had 
been so fatal among them was not the rinderpest; and we learn 
from him that on large Russian estates, where flocks and herds are 
pastured together, the former are not lable to the disease which 
destroys the latter. 
There is no doubt, however, that it is wonderfully lable to 
spread among cattle when once a case has happened. The reports 
to the Privy Council by the veterinary inspectors recorded that from 
1,000 to 1,800 cases a week occurred during the three weeks ending 
October 28th, and there cannot be a doubt that in a multitude of 
instances the veterinary inspection is altogether evaded. The cases 
reported were chiefly in the metropolitan district and in the 
southern and eastern counties and in Scotland; and of the 17,673 
cases altogether up to the end of October only 848 recovered. 
The measures taken by Government within the powers con- 
ferred upon them bya recent Act of Parliament, have been confined 
to the appointment of veterinary inspectors, with power to enter 
premises and direct the slaughter and the burial of infected animals 
—the infliction of penalties upon anyone selling from a diseased 
herd without the inspector’s permit, and in a few cases an enforced 
imprisonment of the livestock of a particular district or province 
within the boundaries of that district. That this has proved insuf- 
ficient is plain from the progress of the disorder ; and her Majesty’s 
Commissioners, to whom an inquiry into the whole subject was re- 
mitted, have at length reported by a majority of their number in 
favour of an enforced entire cessation of movement in cattle (except 
within their several farms) throughout the kingdom for a sufficient 
period ; leaving the markets to be wholly supplied by dead meat. A 
very influential minority of the Commissioners, however, do not believe 
that this is possible, and therefore unite with their colleagues only in 
the alternative measures which they advise in the event of the 
severer recommendation being refused. ‘The measures thus indicated 
are included in the following particulars :— 
“q. For a definite period no lean or store stock should be per- 
mitted to be sold at any fair or market, or in any other manner 
whatever. 
“b. Cattle might be moved for immediate slaughter to a market 
or to a slaughterhouse licensed for use, but only under a licence for 
* It has been since announced, that sheep inoculated from diseased cattle have 
died with all the symptoms of rinderpest. 
