CONTAGIOUS LUNG FEVER OP CATTLE. 227 



ties or the corporation or the dock board will undertake the work. All aiTivals of 

 catiilo from America since the steamer Ontario's cargo have been found entirely free 

 from disease. The severity of the weather, therefore, it is believed caused the out- 

 break in that instance. TJie British Government is, under the circumstances, not in- 

 clined to interfere with the importation of cattle from America, provided there is 

 adequate inspection before shipment and i^rovision of the required lairage at Liver- 

 pool to put them in position to meet such cases as the Ontario's. It is not believed 

 that slaughter on the quays will be enforced where no disease exists. Persons in the 

 trade say that under these conditions American shippers need not fear any interference 

 with the business. 



LoxDON, February 9. 

 In regard to the importation of cattle from America, no action of the Privy Council 

 lias been made known siuce the notice read in the Liverpool town council on Febru- 

 aiy 5, that cattle cannot be landed at the Liverpool docks after March 1, unless i)ro- 

 vision is made for slaughter on the quay. 



THE CATTLE EXPORT TliADE — EFFECT OF THE ElilTISU ORDER IN COUNCIL. 



Li\TERrooL, February 11. 

 The order of the Privy Council adopted yesterday revoking after March 3, 1879, 

 article 13 of the foreign animals order so far as it relates to the United States was a 

 great surprise to the trade here. All cattle fi-om the United States after March 3 will 

 have to be slaughtered in abattoirs now being prepared on the dock estates of Birken- 

 Iiead and Liverjiool within ten days after landing. 



I also forward you articles on tlie subject of pleiiro-pneitmouia, clipped 

 from the IsTatioual Live Stock Journal of Marcli, 1878, and November, 

 1878, from the pen of Dr. James Law. They were inclosed to me and 

 my attention directed to them by Mr. J. H. Sanders, the able editor of 

 that Journal. 



[From the Niitioual Live Stock Journal of March, 1878.] 



THE GREATEST DANGER TO OUR STOCK — THE LUNG FEVER— CONTAGIOUS PLEURO- 

 PNEUMONIA. 



The Journal has frequently called attention to the great dangers that beset oirr live 

 stock fi'om unpolled plagues of foreign origin. During the jiast year the sudden in- 

 vasion of Western Eiu'opo and England by the rinderjiest roused the agricultural com- 

 munity from their dream of safety, and called forth from the Treasury an order remark- 

 able alike for its promptitude and good intentions, and for the fatal blunders which 

 rendered it worse than a dead letter. Once more there seems a i)rospect of a renewal 

 of these apx'rehensious, the Eusso-Turkish war having led to an extension of this cat- 

 tle plague into Hungary, from which the Atlantic coast and Great Britain may be any 

 day infected, owing to the activity of the stock trade. Should this unfortunately take 

 place, it will find us no better prepared than wo were a year ago, and our Treasury 

 order, now in force, will fi'cely invito the disease to enter, provided it makes its advent 

 respectably — in the systems of blooded stock; and not in poor cross-bred animals, which 

 it would be ruinous to imjiort, even if sound. A similar welcome is extended, by im- 

 plication, to all those ruminants which arc devoted more particularly to luxury, and 

 have not been degraded to such vulgar utilitarian objects as the production of meat 

 or wool. Yet all ruminants are subject lo rinderpest, and this malady was carried to 

 France, in 186G, by tv.-o gazelles, as other plagues have often been carried to new 

 countries by the privileged blooded atoclc. 



But we started out to noiice a danger which is no longer separated from us by the 

 broad barrier of the Atlantic, and whose malign presence is not to be dismissed by any 

 oneof ten thousandcontiugencies, as is the ease Avith the possible advent of the rinder- 

 pest. This danger stands i;i iiur midst, and is steadily gaining in force as it encroaches 

 further and furtlu'i, showing liow certain it is, if unchecked, 1<i lay the wliole country 

 under contribution, and inillct luo-it disastrous and permanent losses. Tlie lung fever 

 of cattle, imported into Ikooklyn, li. I. , for the iirst 1 ime, in 1643, in a Dnt ch cow, has 

 never since been at any time entirely absent from our soil. From this center it lias 

 slowly and irregularly extended over a jiortion of New Yorlc, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 

 vania, ^Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia, besides having repeatedly invaded Con- 

 necticut. The slowness of its extension has begotten a false seuse of security, and no 

 real apprc;hensious of serious cousequences reniain from an animal ]ioison which has 

 been for over a third of a century hidden away in tlie near vicinity of the Atlantic 

 coast. 



To disturb this comfoitable and restful condition of the public mind is an implcasant 



