NA TURE 



24l 



THURSDAY, JANUARY i6, 1890. 



THE NEW MUZZLING REGULATIONS. 



\ N essential fault of popular government is in danger 

 ■i »- of being exemplified just now by the possibility of 

 the selfish interests of a few individuals attracting favour- 

 able attention, in utter opposition to the true interests of 

 the nation at large. 



A very reprehensible leading article which appeared in 

 the Standard or\. the 4th inst., to which we shall presently 

 refer in fuller detail, has started an agitation in the home 

 counties, especially in Kent, in opposition to the valuable 

 regulations recently issued by Mr. Chaplin against 

 hydrophobia or rabies. 



It is not uninstructive to review the way in which the 

 issue of these regulations has been brought about, while 

 it is a matter of painful interest to compare our position 

 in England, as regards the prevalence of rabies, with that 

 of some of the more advanced nations on the Continent. 



Before M. Pasteur began his wonderful researches into 

 rabies, the vast majority, even of the highly instructed 

 public, regarded hydrophobia as a kind of Divine visita- 

 tion, and rabies as a form of canine lunacy. Legislation, 

 in the absence of that which has so frequently been called 

 with a double meaning " a healthy despotism," necessarily 

 lagged behind in the arrest of what everyone now knows 

 to be a simple zymotic disease, which, enzootic in Eng- 

 land, becomes, by steady increase during every few years 

 of unchecked development, both epizootic and unfortu- 

 nately epidemic. 



The first advance towards rational prevention of the 

 trouble was made in London in 1885-86 by the Chief 

 Commissioner of Police, first by Sir E. Henderson, after- 

 wards by Sir Charles Warren. 



The result of their work is well known — namely, the 

 temporary extirpation of rabies in London. In a country 

 with more respect for scientific fact, such a benefit to the 

 community would have been followed by the general 

 establishment of preventive legislation throughout the 

 centres of the disease, so as to arrest it completely ; and 

 this having been effected, the adoption of proper quaran- 

 tine measures would alone of course have been required 

 to free us for ever from the evil by preventing its re- 

 introduction from abroad. 



Partly owing to the fact that, until the most wise estab- 

 lishment by the present Government of a General Board 

 of Agriculture, there was no special authority for moving 

 in the matter, no such general action wasjtaken. Lord 

 Cranbrook, however, was earnestly convinced of the im- 

 portance of the subject, and conferred a lasting benefit on 

 all those interested in it by appointing that Select Com- 

 mittee of the House of Lords whose Report and evidence 

 not only furnished a complete and exhaustive account of 

 rabies, but also strongly emphasized the necessity of the 

 adoption of thorough legislative measures, especially of 

 muzzling, to prevent and eradicate the malady. 



In the meanwhile, rabies in dogs, and of course con- 

 currently its fatal attacks on men, steadily increased, until 

 the spring of last year (1889) saw us threatened again in 

 London with an epidemic like that of 1885. 



All the large dog-owners and breeders who had experi- 

 VoL. XLi.— No. 1055. 



enced the manifest value of the regulations of 1885 called 

 for the reinstitution of the muzzle, and at the present time 

 the Field, Fancier's Gazette, &c., afford strong proof, in 

 the earnestness of their expressions of satisfaction at the 

 present muzzling order, of the folly of their contemporary 

 who has endeavoured to oppose it. 



Of course, as before, a few agitators, trading on the 

 innate selfishness of some natures, and supported by the 

 money of a small band of individuals whose names should 

 be for ever preserved as having sought to work harm to 

 their fellow-creatures, recommenced their irresponsible 

 attacks on the authorities and others for this much-needed 

 sanitary regulation, and it is a recrudescence of this selfish 

 obstruction which the Standard has attempted for some 

 (as yet unknown) reason to revive. 



An amusing, if degrading feature of such opposition is 

 the constant change of front which the inevitable progress 

 of scientific truth forces upon these people, as their mis- 

 statements and ignorance become revealed to the public. 

 At different stages of the agitation, their leaders. Miss 

 Cobbe, " Ouida," and others, have stated with inexplicable 

 self-contradiction, that no such disease as rabies existed, 

 that it was wholly imaginary, that it was rare in England, 

 that the police ran no risks in extirpating it, that the 

 muzzle produced this (non-existent) disease, and so on to 

 the end of the chapter. But while the logical difficulties 

 in which these writers involve themselves must excite 

 amusement, it is a matter of serious regret that they cannot 

 be legally dealt with like other disseminators of false 

 news, such for instance as those who in the wilderness of 

 the " great gooseberry season " cry " 'orrible murder " 

 when homicide is pro tern, non-existent. The evil done 

 by these latter is indeed small, compared with that of the 

 far graver false statements which we have cited above. 



In spite, however, of this flood of misrepresentations 

 the muzzling regulations were enforced in London, and 

 with notable benefit, and by the recent order they have 

 been continued and extended by Mr. Chaplin, so as to cut 

 right at the root of the evil, viz. in all the centres of the 

 disease simultaneously. 



It was with the consciousness that this measure would 

 be required by the country of the 'President of the Board 

 of Agriculture, that the anti-muzzlites made a last effort 

 against it by holding a public meeting. The real nature 

 of this agitation, which had been notorious from the com- 

 mencement, was then made most amusingly conspicuous. 

 We refer to the fact that this variety of obstruction is in 

 truth only a branch of the anti-vivisectionist agitation, and 

 worthy of such a parent stem. It seems that at the meeting 

 an atnendment in strong support of muzzling was carried 

 by a majority of something like 80 per cent. The fact 

 of the origin of the Association which had summoned the 

 meeting having been alluded to, the Chairman, the Bishop 

 of Ely, first (we are glad to see) repudiated the idea that 

 he was an anti-vivisectionist, and then went on to say 

 that the anti-vivisectionists had nothing to do with the 

 anti-muzzling agitation. This repudiation on the Bishop's 

 part was followed by the resignation of the originators of 

 the movement, Miss Cobbe and others, demonstrating the 

 truth of what we have just said and the inaccuracy of the 

 Bishop's second statement. 



The general facts bearing upon the origin and develop- 

 ment of the agitation were fully exposed at the meeting, 



u 



