1866. | Annual Retrospect. 141 
The value of scientific education is becommg more evidently 
felt, and the science classes established in connection with the 
Science and Art Department are proving the beneficial results of the 
system. That the Liverpool Town Council has re-established scien- 
tific lectures is another evidence of the growing feeling that, in a 
manufacturing kingdom, science has a real money value. 
The want of this knowledge has been most forcibly thrust upon 
our attention by the cattle plague. It comes upon us, as came the 
cholera, when we are entirely unprepared to receive it, and our 
cattle doctors stare at each other in their wretched ignorance, write 
bald letters to the daily journals, and seek to bury the evidences 
of their own stupidity in the free use of the poleaxe! In the mean- 
time, the cattle-feeder and the dairyman are left to the tender mer- 
cies of the most impudent pretenders. In future years, this period 
of difficulty will be spoken of as one marking the blind ignorance 
of a people who boasted of the march of intellect, but who had, in 
many respects, fallen sadly into the rear. Now that the disease has 
spread over the length and breadth of the land, men are beginning 
to study its pathology. 
Sanitary science slowly makes itself felt, yet, curiously enough, 
with the evidence of its advantages in the preservation of health 
and the improvement of the people which have been brought under its 
influence, many bodies of men stoutly resist what they are pleased to 
call its interference. Many of our large towns—especially Liverpool, 
Glasgow, Manchester, and Leeds—still remain in a most disgraceful 
state, and villages, singularly picturesque when “distance lends 
enchantment to the view,” are foul and offensive as you approach 
them. Many of these are now found to be, instead of the homes of 
health and rosy cheeks, well-devised nurseries of fever. The Social 
Science meeting of this year drew attention to many of those evils, 
physical and moral, and the discussions which arose on many of the 
questions cannot be without their influence for good. No doubt, 
there are many things comprehended under the singularly expansive 
title of sanitary science which have little claim to attention, and 
which serve only to create a smile. Numerous hobbies are ridden 
with desperate energy on the occasion of these meetings—regarding 
these, however, as the waste and useless steam blown off, a large 
reserve of power is left, which can be advantageously applied. 
