OBSEllVATIONS ON QUARANTINE. 45 



" It is gratifying to obsen'e that, at length, a stop has been put 

 (owing, chiefly, to the stringent orders issued by the Government to 

 the various officials in London and the outports) to the introduction 

 of diseased foreign sheep into this country from Holland and Ger- 

 many ; still we are in no way satisfied that future importations may 

 not be productive of the same disastrous results as those we have 

 alluded to in preceding Reviews. For what guarantee have we that 

 the disease will not be received here in its incipient state, and be com- 

 municated to those English sheep which may come in contact with 

 the importations ? The difficulties (arising from .their want of con- 

 dition) which have arisen in finding purchasers for the foreign sheep, 

 have not unfrequently caused numbers of them to be turned out of 

 Smithfield on several successive market-days ; and, as a consequence, 

 they are sent into lairs in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, and 

 are mixed with the English breeds, which, as a matter of course, 

 thus run the risk of contamination, and their owners of beinG: con- 

 siderable losers. Not a few of the cargoes from Holland which arrive 

 hither on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, are sent into Essex 

 and Surrey to wait till the next market-day : hence it is obvious that 

 existing arrangements are not calculated to prevent a recurrence of 

 the evil. In our judgment, therefore, it should be made imperative, 

 either that the sheep and beasts should be made to perform quarantine, 

 or that they should be slaughtered immediately on being landed. As 

 they look as well dead as alive, no possible injury could be inflicted 

 on private interests by the compulsory adoption of the latter alter- 

 native." 



To the gi-eater part of these pointed observations 

 we readily assent ; but there is one to which many 

 objections can be raised, namely, to tlie establishment 

 of a quaranthie ; and as we consider that the adoption 

 of such a plan would be injurious rather than other- 

 wise, we will give our reasons for this opinion. 



We presume that a quarantine must be general, and 

 not partial in its operation ; that is to say, that all 

 imported sheep, at least during the existence of an in- 

 fectious disease in the locality from which they came, 

 are to be subjected to it. Let us take a view of the 



