CATEON, JOHN. 



CATTLE PLAGUE. 



137 





attained a high rank in his profession ; had 

 much to do with chancery practice and actions 

 of ejectment; and was particularly famous for 

 enforcing the seven years' act of limitations in 

 real actions. In December, 1824, he was chosen 

 one of the Supreme Judges of the State. While 

 on the bench he did his utmost to suppress the 

 practice of duelling, and rigorously punished 

 every offender, notwithstanding the fact that 

 previous to his elevation he was himself a noted 

 duellist. In 1836, through the operations of a 

 new constitution adopted by the people of his 

 State, Judge Oatron was retired from the bench. 

 In the following year he was appointed by 

 President Jackson Associate Justice of the Su- 

 preme Court, which position he held until his 

 death. Here he was particularly prominent for 

 his familiarity with the laws applicable to cases 

 involving conflicting titles to Western and South- 

 ern lands. His ability and integrity as a Judge 

 were never doubted. He was regarded by the 

 profession as fearless and incorruptible in the 

 discharge of the exalted duties pertaining to his 

 station. It was his rare and happy fortune to 

 identify his fame with the judicial history of a 

 State and a Nation. As a State Judge, his 

 opinions are reported in Martin and Yerger, and 

 the first eight volumes of " Yerger's Tennessee 

 Eeports," and he bore an important part in re- 

 ducing to system and order the complicated 

 land laws of that State, and establishing upon a 

 just basis its criminal jurisprudence. As a Na- 

 tional Judge, his opinions are reported in the 

 later volumes of Peters, the twenty volumes of 

 Howard, and the two volumes of Black's re- 

 ports, and they form an enduring monument 

 of his judicial attainments, patient and laborious 

 research, untiring industry, and inflexible jus- 

 tice. He was justly proud of his elevated posi- 

 tion, and spared no effort to adorn it. In his 

 private residence in Washington he had col- 

 lected a large law library, and set a noble ex- 

 ample to the members of the Bar in the perse- 

 vering zeal with which he consulted its volumes 

 on all questions of national or personal interest 

 existing in court. 



In politics Judge Catron was a Democrat; 

 but he did not belong to the States Eights 

 school, who were in favor of dissolving the 

 TJ nion. He felt the profoundest solicitude for 

 its preservation, and during the stormy session 

 of Congress in 1860-'61, he exerted his influ- 

 ence with members of Congress and others, so 

 far as he could properly do so, to pi-event 

 the civil war which has so recently termi- 

 nated. In the midst of the terrible excitement 

 which afterwards plunged Tennessee into the 

 vortex of Secession, he was virtually ostracized 

 and banished from the State, but endured his 

 exclusion with heroic firmness and fortitude. 



In 1862 he returned and reopened his court. 

 But he manifested no feeling of vindictiveness 

 toward those who had exiled him ; on the con- 

 trary, in the all-abounding goodness of his 

 heart, he threw over them the mantle of charity, 

 and sought to protect them as far as was con- 



sistent with his duty to his country. Judge 

 Catron was a man of Herculean frame, and his 

 physical health continued good until a few 

 months previous to his death. 



CATTLE PLAGUE (THE). This terrible 

 scourge, known on the Continent of Europe 

 and to some extent, also, in Great Britain, 

 under the name of EIUDERPEST, is not, as some 

 have supposed, a new and hitherto unheard-of 

 disease, but one which like the cholera or the 

 plague has, at no very infrequent intervals, for 

 centuries past, brought destruction upon the 

 herds of Western Europe. Like the plague and 

 the cholera, its home or birthplace seems to be 

 in the East ; and on the steppes of Eastern Eus- 

 sia, Siberia, and Turkistan it never dies out, 

 though it is of a far milder type than when it 

 visits the western countries of Europe. The 

 " grievous murrain " which smote the cattle 

 of Egypt, as a punishment for Pharaoh's ob- 

 stinacy, was in all probability the same disease 

 with that which has so often since that time 

 fallen upon the herds of Egypt, and the coun- 

 tries of southwestern Europe. Homer, Plu- 

 tarch, Livy, and Virgil, all allude often to pests 

 among oxen ; while Columella, at the beginning 

 of the Christian era, in his De Re JZustica, de- 

 scribes their contagious character, and Vegetius, 

 in the fourth century, gives a full account of 

 the plague, and prescribes, as do the govern- 

 mental officers of Europe at the present day, 

 that the plague-stricken beasts should "with 

 all diligence and care be separated from the 

 herd, and be put apart by themselves, and that 

 their carcasses be buried." In the year 376 of 

 the Christian era, the cattle plague visited all 

 parts of Europe, and Cardinal Baronius states 

 that no cattle escaped, save such as were marked 

 on the forehead with the sign of the cross. 



The movement of large armies was generally 

 followed by the cattle plague, the animals at- 

 tached to the army commissariat propagating 

 it with hardly an exception. In the ninth cen- 

 tury it was thus widely distributed through 

 Europe by the movements of Charlemagne's 

 armies. The fourteenth century was remark- 

 able for the prevalence of human plagues, the 

 black death and other desolating epidemics 

 ravaging the States of Europe fifteen times 

 during that century, and being in each case 

 either preceded or followed by grievous mur- 

 rains among cattle. In England, horned 

 cattle died by thousands, and the herdsmen, 

 panic-stricken, fled from their herds, which 

 roamed wildly about the country, carrying the 

 plague into every district. One hundred and 

 forty years later, in 1480, the " sweating sick- 

 ness," which fell with such terrible severity 

 upon the inhabitants of Europe, was accom- 

 panied by another murrain, which visited the 

 British Islands as well as the Continent. There 

 is no existing history of these murrains, which 

 defines their character so fully as to enable us 

 to say with certainty that they are identical 

 with the disease now making such havoc with 

 the English herds ; but the presumption in favor 



