THE HORSE. 177 



had them destroyed, so you will see I have not been idle. Abont six 

 years ago I was called to one of our best horse-car stables, to ex- 

 amine some ' sick ' horses that a quack was ' treating ' by contract 

 (so much per year). I found several of them suffering from glanders 

 in its worst form. I told the president of the company the conse- 

 quences if he kept them longer in the stable ; he ordered me to pick 

 out the diseased ones at once, and if I remember right we destroyed 

 between forty and fifty of them in about two weeks. I have had 

 that same unpleasant duty to perform at four other horse-car com- 

 panies in this city ; the quacks used to treat them for ' distemper.' 

 We have no special law on the subject. If I find any trouble about 

 having the diseased horse destroyed, I call at the office of the Society 

 for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and ask them to send an 

 officer to look after the horse, and see that it is not worked (as that 

 would be cruel), also to see that it is not kept near other horses (as 

 that would be cruel to them) ; so you see it very soon answers the 

 owner's purpose (pocket) to have it destroyed. 



" I have known of three men that died with this terrible dis- 

 ease in this city from inoculation (through sores on their hands), 

 while attending glandered horses and mules ; all of them suffered 

 very much. I hope you will do what you can to teach the public 

 the danger of this disease, as it is worse than this (so-called) pleuro- 

 pneumonia in cattle, and that is bad enough." 



It is just the same in every State, and our national Government 

 is as incompetent and culpably negligent as those of the States. 



Cattle commissions are unnecessary, and one-sided affairs. What 

 we must have are boards of animal hygiene in each State. 



A great noise has been made about pleuro-pneumonia among 

 our cattle. The Government and the cattle interest most emphati- 

 cally denied that we had any, as they do now about porcine trichi- 

 niasis ; but finally had to admit that we have a little of the former. 

 We should never have heard of either of them, unless some one 

 had felt his pockets touched. Then, like cowards, we sneaked be- 

 hind a false assertion, and said, " We have not such things." But 

 Europeans did not believe our assertion, and finally we retracted, 

 and admitted that we have just a few cases of pleuro-pneumonia 

 along our Atlantic seaboard. 



How is it with glanders ? 



Glanders has much in common with pleuro-pneumonia; it is 

 even more stealthy in its progress. Should we, unfortunately (or 

 fortunately, I should say), ship a few lots of horses with this disease 

 to some European country, we should probably again have the 



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