40 THE ITINERANT HORSE PHYSICIAN 



advantage of their official capacity in thus prose- 

 cuting an individual. As a rule the occurrence 

 was not reported by the inspector. Usually we 

 came out on top anyhow, and we merely counted 

 it as a little spice to our sauce. Nearly every 

 inspector in the quarantine division in those days 

 could tell you a number of similar experiences. 



The fault in every case lay with the cattle men, 

 who looked upon the matter as personal between 

 them and the inspectors. They did not stop to 

 consider that everything the veterinary inspector 

 did was under rigid rules and regulations. A 

 government veterinarian in that branch of the 

 service really had no personality while on duty. 

 He was bound to enforce the government regu- 

 lations regardless of sentiment or personal bias, 

 and it could make no difference to him what the 

 circumstances, or who the sufferer. For the 

 inspector it is always an "open and shut" propo- 

 sition. 



For a period of five months I was stationed at 

 El Paso, Texas, making inspections of live stock 

 imported into this country from Mexico. My 

 territory extended along the Mexican border for 

 a distance of about three hundred miles on each 

 side of El Paso. 



At that time Mexico had no rules or regula- 

 tions affecting live stock diseases and the U. S. 

 government regulations on Mexican stock cov- 

 ered all communicable diseases. The U. S. 

 inspectors were supposed to "spot" anything and 

 everything on Mexican stock presented for 

 importation into this country; the inspectors 

 could use their judgement to a great extent. 



